Pubblicato in: Devoluzione socialismo, Unione Europea

Cosa potrebbe fare questa Europa contro l’Italia. – Bloomberg

Giuseppe Sandro Mela.

2018-05-31.

 Castello di Carte con Banconote

Per comprendere appieno questo editoriale di Bloomberg sarebbe utile richiamare alla mente le ultime parole dette dal prof. Krugman, Premio Nobel per l’Economia e portavoce per i problemi economici dei liberal democratici americani.

«Faith in the single currency trumps democracy? Really? European institutions already suffering lack of legitimacy due to democratic deficit. This will make things much worse»

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«This is really awful: you don’t have to like the populist parties who won a clear electoral mandate to be appalled at the attempt to exclude them from power because they want a eurosceptic finance minister»

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Due i concetti base:

– “European institutions already suffering lack of legitimacy due to democratic deficit“. L’Unione Europea è illegittima perché non è democratica;

– “Faith in the single currency trumps democracy“. I sostenitori di questa Europa e di questa eurodirigenza vivono le loro credenze a livello di credo religioso. Credo vissuto in modo così totale ed intenso da permettere che uccida la democrazia. Questo è il giudizio del prof. Krugman.

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Significativo il titolo del The Telegraph

Europe’s soft coup d’etat in Italy is a watershed moment

«Italy’s pro-euro elites have overreached disastrously. President Sergio Mattarella has asserted the extraordinary precedent that no political movement or constellation of parties can ever take power if they challenge the orthodoxy of monetary union.  

He has inadvertently framed events as a battle between the Italian people and an eternal ‘casta’ with foreign loyalties, playing straight into the hands of the insurgent Five Star ‘Grillini’ and anti-euro Lega nationalists. He unwisely invoked the spectre of financial markets to justify his veto of euroscepticism. Taken together, his actions have made matters infinitely worse.»

Il Telegraph usa termini inequivocabilmente precisi: Mattarella ha fatto un colpo di stato.

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«The EU needs to show flexibility and restraint»

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«The crisis in Italy is also a crisis for the European Union.»

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«The populist parties that won the last Italian election, and that hope to do even better next time, are united in little except blaming the EU for Italy’s setbacks»

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«Up to now, the European Central Bank has stayed prudently quiet, but Italy’s bond yields have surged, and there are signs of contagion in Portugal, Greece and Spain»

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«While it’s true that the EU’s rules on fiscal consolidation and ECB support should be exercised flexibly, and that the budget rules in particular need to be improved, they can’t be simply tossed aside, as the populists demand, without undermining the financial integrity of the entire European project»

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«Rather than lecture — or surrender — EU leaders should acknowledge their failure on refugees»

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«Membership in the euro system is what keeps Italian interest rates low enough to support the country’s enormous debts»

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Bloomberg riporta cose ragionevoli in un’ottica che stentiamo a poter condividere.

Se è vero che la permanenza nell’eurozona ha concesso all’Italia un lungo periodo di tassi bassi, periodo peraltro sprecato dai precedenti governi, è altrettanto vero che poco o nulla ha fatto per obbligare l’Italia a contenere il proprio debito delle pubbliche amministrazioni. Quasi che indetificassero nel debito il mezzo per tenere in punto l’Italia.

Non solo. L’Unione Europea negli ultimi anni si è voluta presentare come primizia degli Stati Uniti di Europa, retti dall’attuale dirigenza liberal, esulando fortemente dall’alveo economico per imporre una sua vision e etica e sociale, anche essa vissuta a livello di credo religioso. L’articolista lo ammette solo in piccola parte, quando afferma:

«EU leaders should acknowledge their failure on refugees».

Ma non basta chiedere scusa: mettano anche mano al portafogli.

Bundesbank ha rilasciato un gran bel report sulla sua posizione tedesca nei confronti del Core Capital Tier 1 – 2- 3.

Germany leadership role in the Eurozone revisited: past and present.

«While the German credit market’s claims on the Eurozone decreased by 17 per cent between 2009 and 2012, the decline was even more drastic in the PIGS countries, which amounted to 281 billion USD in 2012.»

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«In late 2010, German bank exposures in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain – the PIGS countries – amounted to around 513 billion USD. Germany’s claims were far greater than those of France (409 billion USD) and Italy (76 billion USD)»

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«Second, whereas European solidarity is steadily drifting away, German Euroscepticism is set to rise. Germany long lacked the fertile ground necessary for Euroscepticism, but the Eurozone crisis has equipped it with the necessary tools. The ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD) was founded in 2013 in protest of the Eurozone bailout of Greece. With nearly 13 percent of the vote, Germany’s right-wing AfD party is now the third-largest and biggest opposition force in the ‘Bundestag’. The AfD not only wants Germany to leave the Eurozone (or alternatively, for weak southern Eurozone countries like Italy, Spain, and Portugal to ‘be kicked out’ in order to save the currency) but also rejects all forms of Eurozone governance, especially financial transfers. More domestic opposition to Merkel’s Eurozone policy will further limit the government’s leeway in the negotiations for Eurozone reforms and thus pose stronger restrictions to ‘benevolent’ leadership»

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In conclusione.

I problemi sono molti e complessi: gli slogan sono controproducenti e fuorvianti. Anche i tentativi di esposizione sintetica corrono il rischio di essere semplicistici.

Una cosa emerge però in modo vistoso.

Tutti si stanno scalmanando a parlare, chi in ben chi in male, dell’Unione Europea, dell’eurozona, della Banca Centrale, dell’euro e, per finire, della presenza dei ‘populisti’.

Sembrerebbe che nessuno abbia il coraggio di chiedersi perché mai questa Unione Europea si stia disgregando, perché mai i ‘populisti’ siano cresciuti prepotentemente fino a diventare forze di governo.

La presenza dei populisti è un sintomo,

non la causa del malessere dell’Europa.


Bloomberg. Editorial Board. 2018-05-30. What Europe Should Do About Italy

The EU needs to show flexibility and restraint.

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The crisis in Italy is also a crisis for the European Union. The populist parties that won the last Italian election, and that hope to do even better next time, are united in little except blaming the EU for Italy’s setbacks. They’re wrong about this, and now Europe must be careful not to play into their hands.

The immediate political turmoil is no closer to resolution. Carlo Cottarelli, the premier-designate and former International Monetary Fund official, has been struggling to form a caretaker government. President Sergio Mattarella may soon be forced to dissolve parliament and call snap elections. Whether the next vote comes soon or after an interlude of technocratic rule (all but doomed to fail for lack of support in parliament), Italy’s future in the euro system will be in contention.

This is an argument that Europe needs to win — but winning will require a demanding mixture of flexibility and restraint.

On Tuesday Guenther Oettinger, a German EU commissioner, told an interviewer: “My concerns and expectations are that the coming weeks will show that developments in markets, government bonds and Italy’s economy could be so drastically impacted that they serve as a signal to voters not to vote for populists on the right and left.” He was also reported as having said something brisker — that financial markets would teach Italy’s voters a lesson. The Five Star Movement and the League were delighted. Matteo Salvini, head of the League, said: “They are shameless in Brussels.”

Oettinger was right, but unwise to say it. The European Union can’t expect to defeat the coalition in a battle for Italian public opinion — not like this, anyway.

Up to now, the European Central Bank has stayed prudently quiet, but Italy’s bond yields have surged, and there are signs of contagion in Portugal, Greece and Spain. What if the Italian populists campaign on a demand for special, rule-breaking assistance from the central bank? The ECB would feel obliged to say no — and Germany, for one, would insist. 

While it’s true that the EU’s rules on fiscal consolidation and ECB support should be exercised flexibly, and that the budget rules in particular need to be improved, they can’t be simply tossed aside, as the populists demand, without undermining the financial integrity of the entire European project.

At the same time, the EU ought to recognize that one of Italy’s biggest grievances is legitimate: The union’s handling of the refugee crisis has been lamentable. Its partners left Italy largely alone to deal with what should have been treated as a European problem. Italy should get more support for the costs of rescuing and processing migrants, and asylum seekers should be distributed more fairly across the EU. Had this been done earlier, the Italian election might have gone differently.

Rather than lecture — or surrender — EU leaders should acknowledge their failure on refugees, then remind Italy that it is a valued member of the euro system, that it benefits enormously as a result, and that membership confers both rights and obligations.

Italians will have to work out for themselves what’s at stake in their future with the EU. In the last election, the populists didn’t dare to explicitly propose quitting the euro system — and with reason, because such a course would be disastrous for Italy’s economy. Membership in the euro system is what keeps Italian interest rates low enough to support the country’s enormous debts. Fiscal control would be far harder, and far more urgent, outside the euro system.

This is the case that Italy’s mainstream politicians should be pressing. There’s only so much the EU’s leaders can do to help. Top of the list is denying the populist alliance more opportunities to point fingers in their direction.