«In a majority motion we asked the government to make the use of derivative instruments more transparent. However, let's say that in international comparison, Italy is already today at high levels of transparency: we have already adopted the best standards for data disclosure. We therefore do not agree to represent ourselves as the country of opacity and mysteries because this is not the case.
We also reject requests to disclose individual contracts. No country in the world does this. Each bank knows its contracts, not those of its competitors. Making all the contracts known to everyone would give an information advantage to those who want to carry out speculative transactions to the detriment of the Italian Treasury and therefore of all of us.
I find it strange that the M5S, which is characterized by the lack of sympathy it has declared towards financial operators, wants to give this significant help to the big banks to the detriment of the treasury, i.e. the taxpayers. We don't want to give this help! You would talk about favors and gifts! We use more sober language.
Some motions try to put people who have or have had responsibility for the management of the public debt at the treasury in the dock; an important and delicate responsibility. So it is good to repeat that the derivatives used by the Treasury are insurance instruments and serve to protect us from interest rate rises.
These contracts are important because the risk to the Treasury is highly asymmetric. If interest rates rise, as is already starting to happen due to the foreseeable end of QE, Italy with the third largest public debt in the world risks a crisis. So it's fair to see a rate hike as a serious risk, a risk to be hedged against. If rates go down, as they have in recent years, nothing serious happens. We are obviously talking about swap rates which are risk free, therefore net of the spread.
The peculiarity that must be understood is that, unlike the usual policies, the insurance premium is not paid at the beginning of the contract, but during the term of the contract, if and when the interest rates are low. And this is the main reason why the market value of our derivatives is negative today.
So, with regard to macro variables, there is no "derivatives" scandal. The bottom line is that we bought an insurance policy and had no accidents. That doesn't mean we wasted our money. Various interventions referred to an ongoing proceeding by the prosecutor of the Court of Auditors of Lazio on some derivative transactions of the Morgan Stanley Bank closed on 22 December 2011, in those dramatic days for our public debt and for the country.
The M5S and Forza Italia have already issued a condemnation sentence on various occasions, despite the fact that the proceeding is in the initial phase. We are still a long way from even just a 1 degree sentence.
A few considerations therefore arise:
– All the actors in the story are innocent until the final sentence. The presumption of innocence applies to Treasury officials, as well as to all citizens, as it should have applied to our ex-colleague Ilaria Capua. To date, no one is able to say whether Treasury officials have actually been negligent, as claimed by the Court of Auditors' indictment, i.e. whether they have overlooked or underestimated the importance of a particular contractual clause added way back in 1994 which allowed Morgan Stanley to terminate the contract early in 2011.
– When the summary sentences, on the media square, come from those who have waged great battles for guarantees, one cannot help but say that it is really a question of alternating guarantees.
– The media condemnations of Forza Italia colleagues, who have suddenly become a bit manipulative, are all the more curious since two of the three Treasury DGs that the Court has asked to account (Domenico Siniscalco and Vittorio Grilli, in my opinion both very respectable people; I mention them by name because they are mentioned in the Forza Italia motion) were appointed by right-wing governments. And they have traded in derivatives with right-wing governments. Not only that, but, as far as we know, most of the operations that then gave rise to the loss in 2011 were carried out between 2002 and 2005. Now the Forza Italia group is causing a big scandal. Talk about the “huge losses” caused by derivatives. But dear FI colleagues, we are talking about you here. We are talking about your government. You can't pretend that someone else ruled.
– Even the excellent Dr. Maria Cannata, Head of the Public Debt Directorate, at whom you point the accusing finger, was in that position throughout the duration of right-wing governments, as well as those of the centre-left, for 17 years. None of us can be called out.
I would add that, regardless of what the outcome of the ongoing proceedings on specific operations will be, those officials, even those appointed by right-wing governments, have generally done well, not badly. Like everyone else, they helped protect our public debt from a possible rate hike.
And I also say that instead of causing scandal for things on which we just have to wait for the sentence, we should ask ourselves why in 2011 Morgan Stanley asked to terminate some contracts in advance, i.e. essentially to reduce the credit it was disbursing to the state Italian. And we should ask ourselves why the US authorities were worried about their banks' exposure to Italy at the time.
The withdrawal of the banks from Italy in 2011, as well as millions of savers, are the consequence of the Berlusconi government. I am certainly not the cause of the 2011 crisis, as the Forza Italia MPs are now trying to say, riding the bizarre conspiracy fantasies that the M5S like so much. Or passing the buck on state servants, even those chosen by Fi.
This blame game is frankly a bit hateful and above all it's harmful, because we have to be afraid of officials who don't assume any responsibility and don't sign anything. We must not be afraid of officials who sign and take responsibility. And if we cross them with media trials, as we are trying to do today, in addition to committing the typical injustice of all justicialisms, we make a further contribution to the paralysis of the public administration. Which in a very delicate sector such as public debt management is, to say the least, not responsible.
We therefore make more transparency, but we reject requests that would weaken the Treasury in favor of speculation. And we reject the really clumsy attempt to exploit the story politically. Beyond the judicial truth for which - I repeat - we just have to wait for the sentences, the political responsibility for what happened at the end of 2011 is clear and there are no sleight of hand that can hide this absolutely evident and elementary. The operations that are now being examined by the Court of Auditors are the consequence of the collapse of trust in our country. And this is the essence and the lesson of that story».
