The echo of Pierre Moscovici's externalization on the "little Mussolins" in Europe ("in Italy", according to the local press) and on the need for our country to present a "credible" financial law - arrived the day after the request for sanctions against Hungary - unfortunately overshadowed the even more direct statements of Mario Draghi - an Italian, indeed a "serious Italian" according to the authors of "La Casta" a few years ago - on the fact that institutions of the Union, those of the Eurozone and, ultimately, all the successors in the Italian public debt are still “waiting for the facts. And the main facts are the draft financial law and the parliamentary discussion. At that point the markets, savers and investors will make their judgments ”. Instead, so far “unfortunately the voices we have heard have already done damage. Interest rates have risen for businesses and households ", without any contagion occurring:" it has remained a predominantly Italian problem ".
To put it in La Stampa on Friday 14 September, "every phrase by Draghi is a response to the theses circulated in recent months in the palaces. The governor Bce makes it clear that if someone thinks that the partners will be frightened by the consequences of Italian problems, and for this reason it will be willing to grant more deficits than the rules foresee, it has hurt the calculations". Actually, Draghi has also "made the names", so to speak, of those representing Italy who have taken responsible and comforting positions: "Having said that we must be aware that the Italian Prime Minister, the Minister of Economy and the Foreign Minister have all said that Italy will respect the rules. We stick to what they said".
Yes, the names: Giuseppe Conte, Giovanni Tria and Enzo Moavero Milanese, that is to say the "respectable face" chosen by the two populist / sovereign parties in the government1 and the two representatives of the “president's party”, chosen directly by the Quirinale. Yes, the President of the Republic: Mario Draghi took care to name him, so as not to throw him immediately into the eye of the storm, but it is Sergio Mattarella who has the power, according to some, to prevent that, as new Sedecia, the Northern League and above all the Grillini - the latter for their infighting between "orthodox" and "realists" - bring Italy straight under the siege of the modern Nebuchadnezzar, the community institutions. Like the Babylonian ruler, Brussels and Frankfurt demand a heavy toll - the accounts in order - in exchange for the possibility of making the country grow as it pleases its citizens. This is why the political offensive against Budapest and the media offensive against Rome - one a local problem, the other a potential systemic problem - must be read by the two deputy premieres, Salvini and Di Maio, as very serious, because beyond the verbal skirmishes with the ministers of two small states - Luxembourg and Malta - which together have fewer inhabitants than Turin, what matters is the fact that - from now and at least until the European elections in May 2019 - the guns are aimed at the traction states sovereignist; and of these, if Hungary is the veteran, Italy is the champion.
After the non-exciting performance of Salvini's followers in Sweden, a sign that the spectrum of sovereignty does not go beyond 20% throughout Europe, now the traditional political forces - popular and socialist - and the "systemic" ones - Macron - are looking to Rome as to a subject towards which you do not show weakness.
It is wrong to say that the Italian government is perceived as a reformer, in this historical phase in which the executive calls itself "of change": it is, in reality, perceived as a foreign body, which does not grant a moment of truce, even for not being a future accused of "appeasement" in the event that the combined effort of the various Putin, Trump, Orban, Salvini and Grillo succeeded in trying to shatter all or part of the structure of the Union.
We are back to the cannon aimed at Rome: in Brussels know that they will not have to shoot a blow, given that in case of missteps Italy will be under the conventional bombardments of rating agencies, able to weaken the country's defenses without Rome raise the anti-aircraft of the quantitative easing2. The thing must appear dramatically clear to the Quirinale, if it is true as it is true that in Riga, in Latvia, in the last hours he publicly stated that "the benefits of (European) integration are almost never fully monetizable. It is not the accounting calculation that defines the advantage that the Union ensures for all its members". In short, the advantage of free movement of people, goods and ideas must be stronger than the climate of envy and suspicion created by the anti-European forces. Then, the speech of our twelfth head of state is scaled up, reaching the heart of social campaigns hostile to the Union, according to some financed by external powers: "But also in terms of security, compared to possible returns of hostility of someone from the big countries (NdR was in the Baltic: who knows who he was referring to?) Who writes it leaves the reader the freedom to understand it ... I help you a bit: not Sweden!), what is effective? A Union weakened by internal rivalries, in which everyone presents himself, in reality, or a cohesive, compact Union, which makes all the countries that compose it stronger?".
Here is the central point of the European question: the interest of the USA, Russia, China but also of the United Kingdom is - and will increasingly be - that in the face of the next serious international crisis, a "Super State" like the EU, cannot, as unfortunately so many times in the past, take a position as a great power, but only express diluted and ambiguous positions, as a European UN. A strong axis Brussels-Moscow, Brussels-Washington or Brussels-Beijing, with Europe on an equal footing, does not interest any of the three subjects.
Mattarella seems to imply that today some political forces set themselves the intention of breaking the European project by acting not as the new "little Mussolini", but by ambassadors of foreign interests. The President continues: "We have often made mistakes - evidently - in considering how we have acquired some results, taking certain conditions for granted. instead - he concluded - it must be understood, even to the younger generations, that they are never acquired forever, nor discounted forever". And here he concludes: "we need to reflect on this because we run the risk of re-proposing a climate within the Union that is not only competitive but is opposed, which then becomes a conflict, then becomes hostility, we do not know what".
Here is the answer to Draghi's concerns and Moscovici's doubts: any financial law will have to pass the scrutiny of the Quirinale, which will do everything to avoid confrontation with the European Union, for the good of the European process but also to avoid a bathroom of blood for Italy resulting from the reaction of the Commission and Parliament to possible missteps. At that point, the government of change will be able to oppose - to the presidential veto as provided for by the Constitution - only a double parliamentary passage (Chamber and Senate) with as many votes of confidence, to force the signature of the head of state, without breaking - we remember - any norms, apart from those of the label. Here, however, that, in such a scenario of "rupture", the cannons of the Commission and the European Central Bank will not have to fire even a single shot (sanctions, reprimands, etc.), because the real stakeholders of the Italy, the financial institutions and individuals who buy our public debt will completely lose confidence in the solvency of our country, and will give way to the nuclear option: they will stop buying our government bonds overnight and will ask the reimbursement of those falling due (about 350 billion euros), to pay for which the Government will have to think of an emergency financial maneuver equal to the entire cost of bailing out Greece in the last seven years or the value of the gold and currency resources of the State. In short, a bloodbath.
The consequences? Those who are fifty today will not see Italy thriving before going to the holy camp. A little like living the years of maturity between the 1914 and the 1945 ...
Is there to be alarmed? No, we are sure - or at least we hope so much - that the Cabinet Conte has understood the message and that he will try to have some margin of expenditure through diplomatic channels and without breakages. Because Tria and Mattarella have one thing clear: we are a crock pot in the middle of iron pots.
1 In this article "populists" and "sovereigns" are referred to as synonyms and refer to the political location of M5S and Lega. Given that often their leaders use these terms with undisguised pride, we do not use them with a negative meaning.
2 A spread to 600 would mean paying more than 60 billion each year of interest: thinking of the difficulties of Minister Tria to find 10 billion, the reader can easily guess how to find 60 the hands of the state would fit in his pockets ...
(photo: Quirinale)
