The Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, has already raised alarm signals several times. The last one was on Saturday and it was very clear: "The economic situation is delicate and difficult choices are needed." The Northern League minister's warning is intended for his government companions in view of the budget maneuver which is very far from the electoral dreams of Giorgia Meloni need Matteo Salvini but which cannot tolerate madness, given the public debt numbers that speak for themselves. “The Italian public debt – Federico Fubini recalled yesterday on Corriere della Sera – is reaching 3 trillion euros and its cost in interest for the State will double, to over 100 billion a year”. Because of this, Nadef in hand, spending cuts of at least 10% will be needed. With how much joy the parties of Government a few months before the European elections it is easy to imagine. But, as the then Minister of Economy once said Piercarlo Padoan, "the path is narrow" because on the one hand there are the needs of the economy and the weakest sections of the population but on the other there is the severe gaze of the financial markets, which are the silent but fearsome stone guest of the meetings of Government at Palazzo Chigi.
Meloni, the nightmare of the spread and the memory of the crisis of the Berlusconi government in 2011
It is no coincidence that Giorgetti, some time ago, had candidly confessed that he no longer feared the judgment of the gods markets than that of the European Commission itself. And the memory of the financial crisis of August 2011 when it spread skyrocketed and the markets lost confidence Berlusconi government even before Parliament, he is more alive than ever and explains the nervousness of the prime minister who makes fun of the hypothesis of a caretaker government but does not take it lightly at all. For a country weighed down by public debt, market confidence is decisive for placing its government bonds and for slowing down their yields and containing interest expenditure. Today we are certainly not in the situation of 2011 but it would be unforgivable to lower our guard after the upward trend in the yield of the 4,96-year BTP, which has now stood at 200%, and the BTP-Bund spread which for weeks has been approaching 2011. In the second part of 575 the spread reached 194 basis points, today we are at 350 but if it rises there will be trouble and it is no coincidence that in the ranks of the majority, as well as on the markets, it is thought that the limit threshold of the spread is at XNUMX points. Today we are fortunately far away but the sentiment of the markets like that of the electorate is fluid and one can never be calm, especially since a highly credible personality like SuperMario Draghi no longer sits in Palazzo Chigi.
Meloni, Italy and the ratings calendar
This is why Giorgia Meloni is the first to anxiously await the judgement rating agencies on the sustainability of public debt. Between October and November a Via Crucis awaits you which will begin with the S&P rating on October 20th and continue on the 27th with that of Dbrs and on November 10th with the Fitch rating and on the 17th from Moody's. Let's cross our fingers and hope for Italy that there will be no downgrading because one would be enough to make it even more problematic and expensive to place our BTPs on the market without the umbrella of the ECB and in a declining phase of the Italian economy which makes it increasingly difficult to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio. It will probably not be a black autumn for Meloni and Italy but it will certainly be a gray autumn.
