“Global challenges can only be tackled together: it is this union that enhances the ability of individual countries to maintain sovereignty over relevant issues, sovereignty that would otherwise be lost in this global world. It is precisely in this sense that the single currency gave all eurozone members their own monetary policy sovereignty, compared to pre-existing monetary arrangements”. These are the words of Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, who, speaking at the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the euro in the Strasbourg Parliament, wanted to overturn the logic on which populism is based.
"The euro has safeguarded the integrity of the single market and currently our economies are integrated to a level that was not imaginable when the euro was designed – he added – The euro has produced two decades of price stability even in countries where it has not been remembered for some time and price stability has supported citizens' confidence in the value of their savings, which is one of the conditions for prosperity. Based on this trust, companies invest and create new jobs”.
Draghi admits that “the open problems remain enormous: in some countries not all the benefits of the euro have been fully realized and in part this is due to the fact that reforms at the national level are necessary, and would be necessary in any monetary system, to produce sustainable growth; in part, because the economic and monetary union remains incomplete”.
For this, according to Eurotower's number one, "we still need to work: there is no alternative to a future where we will continue to work together to make monetary union an even stronger engine of prosperity for all member states. The duty now is to complete what began 20 years ago."
Draghi's words stand in stark contrast to those of the Italian Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, who, starting from the latest ECB supervisory decisions on bank NPLs, attacked the Banking Union "desired by the EU and voted by the Democratic Party". According to the Northern League leader, "not only has it not made our financial system more stable, but it causes instability, affecting citizens' savings and a banking system, such as the Italian one, which had stood up better than all to the great financial crisis of 2008".
