"Mitigate" the recessive effects of the consolidation of the accounts by favoring "reductions in current public expenditure and that of taxes". This is the recipe proposed today by the ECB president, Mario Draghi, on a visit to Rome to receive an honorary degree from the private Luiss university.
According to Draghi, in Europe "taxation is already high in any international comparison". In any case, the ECB is "ready to act" again "if necessary", later the rate cut of the past few days to 0,5%.
To help lending to SMEs, "national interventions could also be effective - continued the central banker - with the participation of governments, public banks and development agencies".
In Europe for almost “twenty years there has been a trend towards the concentration of household incomes – said the president of the ECB – which penalizes the weakest. We need a more equitable share in the fruits of national wealth", which increases "social cohesion" and leads "to economic success".
“Growth today is weaker in some countries than in others not only because credit is scarce; it was weaker even before the crisis, despite an often tumultuous growth in public spending, because there was no desire to address the structural fragility of which we feel the full weight today".
