The Plan B of Savona and the scenarios of the Europe of tomorrow

(To David Rossi)
13/07/18

"Pacta sunt servanda? Yes, of course: however, when there is a minimum of loyalty on the other side. And instead, we Italians have always observed the pacts, the Germans never. In short, our loyalty was never reciprocated. In any case, we would not be traitors but betrayed". The words of the defensive memorial of Galeazzo Ciano sound ominously familiar, in light of the reference to the theory of the "Black Swan" made by the minister Paolo Savona: "We could find ourselves in a situation in which we will not decide, but will be others. For this we must be ready for any eventuality". During the Verona trial, Ciano responds to the accusations concerning the implementation of the Great Agenda, "Plan B" of the Grand Council of Fascism: after a few hours, Mussolini finds himself surrounded and forcibly transferred from the Quirinale to Campo Imperatore on the Gran Stone. And the last part of our examination in three articles starts from the former palace of the Popes.

In our previous writings we focused on the political and economic consequences and similar cases of breaking up of unions of states following the plot of the famous "practical guide to exit the euro" written by the current manager of relations with Europe and we underlined on several occasions the lack of a serious analysis of institutional relations: now, in this last article, before deepening the analysis of the "Italexit" phenomenon, the writer invites the reader to ask himself in the study of the President of the Republic at the Quirinale, to admire the scene in front of him, at the time when - having effectively maintained secrecy and being able to write the decree law in order to bring Italy out of the Euro zone between Friday evening and the opening of the markets Monday morning - in the end the leaders get on the representative cars and ask to meet the head of state. Yes, because it serves his signature: without this formality, the pieces of paper painstakingly prepared by the highest economic and political authorities of the country, are worth as much as the paper on which they are written.

Here we are, arranged along the walls, the writer and you readers, all admired by the stuccos and frescoes: we hear the breathless steps of the government's leading figures tapping on the marbles, while the president1, trying to keep the aplomb given the late hour and unaware of what is secretly prepared2 for the country, it awaits them. Here his guests enter, soaked with sweat: someone wants to linger in greetings, someone wants to get to the point; in the end, the president finds himself in his hands the decrees. Perhaps not fasting in classical culture, the landlord of the Quirinale understands what a pro-republican sentiment enlivens Brutus and Cassius, unable to imagine that history would have made them the symbols of betrayal. The same fire obviously burns inside them. Now, it's up to him: will he become the last of the Euro caesaricides? The writer and the reader are still there and are likely to observe a refusal: even for the fact that they have not been involved and now have to assume political and moral responsibility, the president has no interest in dipping his finger in the blood. We imagine it trussing, laying questions of goat's wool like Don Abbondio in front of Renzo, asking to consult dude and caio, putting at risk the secret and the project ... In short, a personal and political conflict worthy of that in the soul of Vittorio Emanuele III in front of Benito Mussolini in July of 1943! And we think that history ends up repeating itself: perhaps not with two hundred carabinieri to take the unfortunates ... but at least with a rejection of tragic force for one of the parties. And for the country.

We have concealed the reader, because we want to try, as in this case, to take some steps together, this time outside the halls, courtyards and gardens of the Palazzo del Quirinale, imagining in what conditions we can leave the Euro, placing ourselves in time in different shoes, because the exit from the Euro is not a thing for all seasons! We will refer to three simple scenarios on four possible:

  • Exit from the Eurozone for serious reasons inside Italy

  • Exit from the Eurozone for serious external peripheral reasons

  • Exit from the Eurozone for serious external central reasons

The fourth scenario, the exit without serious reasons, does not seem serious to consider: who voluntarily undergo chemotherapy being knowingly healthy?

We will do this by crossing each scenario with a different state of the economy in Italy: being, who writes, strongly anti-Marxian and not considering the economic picture as central, it is important to consider this "state of the economy" as a reflection also of political aspects, demographic, cultural, etc. To simplify, we have identified three "states":

  • The British (or Swiss) scenario: Italy has international economic-political relationships that can largely be disregarded by European Union partners and customers: like the United Kingdom, it has successful relationships with the United States, China, India ... and a real network of "members" and "former members"; like Switzerland, it has a financial strength from great power and the habit of resisting under siege conditions against the strategic interests of the country.

  • The scenario of average decadent power: it is more or less what the person who experienced the season started in the 1992 knows. The writer leaves the imagination of the details to the reader ...

  • The Greek (or Cypriot) scenario: Italy has an internal crisis of exceptional gravity in progress. The political system and the economic-industrial system can not find a solution, while system-wide credit institutions have in fact failed. International relations are marked by a now carcinogenic mistrust.

Now let's try to cross the scenarios ...

Exit from the Eurozone for serious reasons inside Italy being the country in a British (or Swiss) scenario

After years of overwhelming development, with currency reserves at the highest ever, an economic crisis is triggered that involves one or more of the country's major institutions. The writer, although not Eurosceptic, believes that the political class is, in this picture, as the leaders of the Pentapartito at the end of the eighties eighties: unable to renew themselves and make decisions even for their own conservation. For decades, the country has been in the habit of canceling with one hand what it has written with the other: it's a scene from Italexit rushed and, unfortunately, looks a lot like what was done in 1992, when the government and the Bank of Italy, led by Giuliano Amato and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, they destroy the currency reserves in central bank Dollars, burning almost 5% of GDP in a few days to resist speculation. The case of a reasoned exit or of the negotiation of "most preferred" conditions is different if we allow ourselves to remain in the Eurozone: do not forget the reader the premise of the network of international relations already built and of the good financial background.

Exit from the Eurozone for serious internal reasons to Italy being the country in a scenario of average decadent power

Who reads, ignore the last points of the previous scenario: in this scenario we do not have powerful friends but we are in the mud, even if still with our heads out. This is what we have experienced, at least in part, in the 2011-12, at the time of the sovereign debt crisis. Probably, it is the ideal theater for the political psychodrama mentioned above: a Euro-skeptical ruling class or converted to euro-skepticism that rejects a "Troika" type operation and prefers to be accredited as a liberator of the country by the Brussels Leviathan. The writer accompanies the reader once again on the threshold of the studio where the head of state and the government of the Italexit face each other and invites him to put himself in the role of one, then those of others. In the first case, after having tried every reason, he finds himself at the crossroads: to understand what is being talked about, the reader must only now descend into the role of the "cesaricides" of the Euro. Here, the president is irremovable: indeed, he is probably to announce to the country and the world his "rejection", provoking not the failure of the operation, but certainly the personal and political of its protagonists, which the country will judge with esteem or with hatred as happened in Spain to the Catalan independentist leaders. But the reader, still barded as a leader, has a card to play: he may have prepared the replacement of the head of state with the president of the Senate3, maybe more friend. But this is a "practical guide for a coup d'etat" scenario, for which we refer to the Turkish language edition of the 2016, not yet translated into Italy ...

Exit from the Eurozone for serious internal reasons to Italy being the Country in a Greek (or Cypriot) scenario

"Where is the corpse, there will be vultures". Without disturbing the Gospel, it seems to us that this scenario makes the idea of ​​a lost war. Probably, it's the Black Swan of which the minister Paolo Savona speaks. There is enough to break the country in several parts or to see two hundred carabinieri break into the Palazzo Chigi sent in a preventive manner by the president, to stop a plot harbinger to unleash a civil war. May God escape us ...

Exit from the Eurozone for serious external peripheral reasons, since the country is in a British (or Swiss) scenario

Premise: Peripheral countries are those, so to speak, not core of the Eurozone: Portugal, Greece, Slovakia etc. They have small economies, but they saturate the financial institutions of the "central" countries with their securities and derivatives. This scenario may be the eve of a crisis of the leading powers, if not controlled by Brussels (and Berlin). Having an enviable economic framework, we can freely decide how to place ourselves on European solidarity: a local crisis does not affect us (unless it concerns a "client"), as it may not constitute a strategic threat to the enlargement of the same "Hazel" of the European Union. Rome from the you in Beijing, Washington, London and New Delhi: like the Allies in 1938, we can take time and decide not to die for Prague and Vienna ... What a beautiful thing it must be to live like the Swiss, to govern a Commonwealth but to live in Italy !

Exit from the Eurozone for serious external peripheral reasons, since the country is in a scenario of average decadent power

This time it was not us, but someone takes the same with Italy: we are one of the PIGS even if our families and businesses are among the least indebted in Europe. Since we are touchy, we decide to leave the Eurozone to show him the green mice of his memory. The reader reaches us again in the president's office and prepares to watch the scene of the protagonists' exit ... with their legs and above all, without the two hundred carabinieri in tow. Yes, because in the end Italy is not sinking: the attempt to impose the Italexit to the president fails, but with a compromise to good; that is, that the president will not announce his refusal but it will have to start a political debate in the country, starting from the day after. The leaders, a bit 'bumped, already put on the upsurge in their popularity for all the time of the anti-Euro campaign.

Exit from the Eurozone for serious external peripheral reasons, since the country is in a Greek (or Cypriot) scenario

If Athens cries, Sparta does not laugh. Two scenarios ago, we said that a localized but peripheral crisis could expand to a country core. Here, Italy is the first candidate in this scenario to be attacked by the unters. And like all potential sick people, he can react by thinking that he has already passed off and trying in every way to escape this sad destiny, "svignandosela" from Europe. But to go where? And with what means? We are "central", but already in critical condition. In this scenario, the president has no qualms about ridiculing the euro-skeptical forces: as the books on the Italian army in Russia recall, a war is not fought with cardboard boots and patches on trousers. Not even the dramatic glory of the two hundred carabinieri ...

Exit from the Eurozone for serious external central reasons, since the country is in a British (or Swiss) scenario

The reader recalls that a former DS secretary was proud to boast that his party has a bank. Here, there are at least three countries core in Europe where some bankers can boast of having a nation. Too bad that not all these banks located in the core of the Union are financial health models. Imagine that suddenly Fortuna asks them for investments in derivatives worth 5, 10 or 15 times the GDP of France or Germany. Or both together. Italy is sly, like King Solomon enthroned: does the reader believe that Rome knows the meaning of "European solidarity" in such a situation? Or will it rather rework the "knife in the back" theory? The reader and the writer imagine, probably, the president intent to read a few times the decrees "Italexit", just to be sure to put the seal on a well done caesura. Other than cesaricides: what were you waiting to come before?

Exit from the Eurozone for serious external central reasons, since the country is in a scenario of average decadent power

The reader and the writer forget the sweet taste of the previous scenario. Here, there are tears and blood: probably, the European partners are faced with more than a doubt about the future of the Eurozone and start to deal with a backup option. The writer believes that, in this scenario, the president sits down to read the decrees, but does not sign them. It has never been in the "style" of Italy to first turn off a little flattened flame: too much responsibility.

Exit from the Eurozone for serious external central reasons, since the country is in a Greek (or Cypriot) scenario

Did we influence the nucleus? Or a peripheral country? The fact is that the sensations must be the same as Vienna and Budapest in November 1918 or Moscow in the second part of the 1991. It is the end of the Euro and of the Union as we know them. Unpredictable scenario in which, however, we would risk making the figure of the earthenware vase among the iron pots. Again, the ancient principle of not taking on too many responsibilities is worth without immediate benefits: the president, in front of our anxious eyes, certainly does not sign the decrees. But the fear of being overwhelmed by the collapse of Euroland is such that someone begins to flip through the manual of the coup, just to not be overwhelmed. Scenario from 8 September ...

In conclusion, the costs and risks of an exit from the Euro, as analyzed in our first article, can be managed at best only in two scenarios: those in which Italy is a regional power with a solid network of relations and a positive economic-financial framework, with an important crisis taking place in the heart or in the periphery of the European construction. In that case, we can talk about an exit for opportunism. In all other cases, Italexit appears as an intolerable leap into the dark or, indeed, as an unnatural step for our people and their political culture.

   

Also read: "We have tried the Plan B of Savona to put it into practice. Here's what happens ..."

Also read: "We continue the analysis of the Plan B of Savona: even the states in their small ... are broken"

   

1 No reference to Sergio Mattarella or other politicians: the writer is not addressed to personalities in the news.

2 The head of state is not on the list of personalities indicated as having cause in the implementation of Plan B.

3 We are not talking about the current, Senator Alberti Casellati.

(photo: web / Arma dei Carabinieri)