The Italian Fiscal Council has been talked about for many years. As often happens, the idea of creating an independent authority to certify our public accounts has pros and cons. Among the pros, it is clear that for a country with a high public debt like Italy it is essential that its accounts are credible and subjecting them to further independent scrutiny can give benefits far greater than the costs. On the other hand, it can be objected that a new duplication of functions would be created with respect to the Court of Auditors, which is also independent of the legislative and executive powers. And again, it could be recalled that the experience of the sector authorities in Italy is not flattering as evidenced, for various reasons, by the limited success of privatizations in terms of improving the performance of often inefficient companies and, sometimes, by the conformation of poor authorities of competent and independent technicians and colonized by trumped politicians.
And, however, regardless of these arguments of merit, the Italian Fiscal Council is about to be born with a caesarean section. The pregnancy started with the approval of constitutional law number 1 of 2012, the one that introduced the balanced budget into the Charter. The Council will consist of three figures - a president and two members - and will be accompanied by a rich array of support officials. The essential purpose is not so much to provide additional independent certification but to do so in concert and on behalf of the EU bodies in charge of managing compliance with the commitments undertaken: primarily the European Commission, but also the ECB exposed in various ways towards the countries in crisis.
From what appears, the House and Senate Budget Committees will have to choose ten of the 66 CVs deemed suitable. Subsequently, among the ten, the President of the Senate and that of the Chamber will have to identify the three selected candidates. The selection of the three commissioners is crucial for the new authority to be born well. You need a good midwife.
Those who believed that the Fiscal Council should help "massage" the Italian public finances to facilitate the achievement of the objectives subscribed by our country in compliance with the Fiscal Compact would think badly. Respecting those commitments will be difficult, perhaps impossible, but a renegotiation process obtained in Brussels by the Italian government will have to take charge of this. It would be rash to think that for this purpose the introduction of elements of political sensitivity within the Fiscal Council could help. In that case, the result would probably be an own goal: by weakening the credibility of the new authority, the renegotiation would become even more impervious.
And, therefore, it will be good that the Budget commissions, first, and the Presidents of the chambers, then, keep their backs straight and choose irreproachable technicians, as distant as possible from our local politics and as familiar as possible with the environments of Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin . As I said, the role of politics will also be necessary, but it must be kept quite distinct from technical roles.
Anyone who is not deaf can clearly perceive the creaking around the European construction today. We must bear in mind that Italy is the largest of the countries that have entered a sovereign debt crisis. Therefore, with an Italy saved, Europe is half saved. And it is also appropriate to welcome the fact that, by exporting Mario Draghi, our finest technician, to Frankfurt, Italy has already made a very important contribution to saving the common European home. This is the path to follow for the members of the Fiscal Council too: only technicians well distanced from politics and perhaps with signs of rejuvenation and attention to gender differences.
