Fortunately, the gold reserves of the Bank of Italy, net of all the rantings of the fake Northern League gurus, are defended by the ECB and by international treaties because, given the current climate, the Government would be capable of appropriating even those.
After snatching the CDP forcing it - for the first time in its history but fortunately without affecting the postal savings of the Italians - to pay an extraordinary dividend to the Treasury of 800 million in addition to the already endorsed check for 1,5 billion deriving from the profit of 2018, the Government is now thinking about the profits of the Bank of Italy.
In a desperate attempt to rouge the accounts and to appear before the European Commission with a hoard of 7 billion euros to avoid the infringement procedure for excessive debt, the Government is considering getting its hands on at least two billion more accrued profits by the Bank of Italy compared to the previous year.
With just under an extraordinary billion taken from the CDP, another two from the Bank of Italy and three deriving from possible savings on Quota 100 and the Citizenship Income - if Salvini and Di Maio give the green light to Conte and Tria - the Government thinks thus to convince the EU to close the infringement procedure which would risk unleashing a financial storm on Italy. Since we are dealing with non-organic but all extraordinary revenues, it seems difficult for the Government to pass the Brussels test, but it is too early to tell.
But much more alarming are the maneuvers that Lega and Cinque Stelle - with Salvini's blessing - are weaving to definitively gag the Bank of Italy, overturning its governance and assigning the Government and Parliament the power to appoint the Directory and a law of the State the power to change the statute of the central bank. In this sense, the group leaders in the Senate of the League and the Five Stars have presented a very dangerous bill in recent days that Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says he does not know.
If the provision were to be approved, the appointment of the Governor, the General Manager and one of the three Deputy General Managers of the Bank of Italy would be up to the Government while the other two Deputy General Managers would be appointed by Parliament. In this way the independence of the Bank of Italy would end forever and the governments on duty would be free to manipulate it as they wish, subordinating it to their own dictates and policies. With all due respect to the balance of powers that every democracy provides.
