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Questo articolo è stato pubblicato il 30 dicembre 2011 alle ore 11:45.

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There is just one, obligatory, way to come out of the Italian spiral: to win back confidence from the world. Il Sole 24 Ore has been hammering on this point for some time now and it has the duty to point out that the path to follow is difficult, there are no alternatives. Yesterday, Prime Minister Mario Monti said there is no time: the future of the euro and therefore of the global economy hinges on what Italy manages and does not manage to do; we have to eliminate the wrong biases that Europe has on us.

The most significant difference between today and more than one and a half months ago, when "the Country was on the brink of the precipice without a guardrail", is that someone resumed buying Italy. Something, especially in the short and medium-term, is sold at decisively better interest rates for our public accounts. An even more difficult job lies ahead for longer term securities and the BTp-Bund spread over 500 is tangible proof of this. We are going in the right direction but we have to be aware that we have to sell large amounts of debt and that we cannot do so at costs that remain so high. We need the best people of the Treasury and the Bank of Italy to resume selling Italy and to explain to the investor community that what has just been carried out is the greatest structural adjustment package ever made in a Country like Italy in such a brief period of time; that there will be no further adjustments and that a consolidation process has started in terms of growth (an initial reduction in the fiscal and social security burden on labor and businesses, a resumption of investments, the fight against tax evasion).

It is crucial that the commitments made (liberalizations, labor market, infrastructures) now be implemented in the timetable agreed with European institutions. Certainly we already did quite a bit, Spain did much less, this is the truth and it has to be told and explained; because we have to convince big US investment funds and banks, but also Countries with a balance of payments in surplus and as well as German banks (why not?) that it is convenient to steadily invest on public securities being auctioned by Italy.

We have an uphill path to climb; now we can make it and, as we already said, we have no alternatives: The Bank of Italy forecasts that the recessive impact of the Monti budget, net of global restrictive drives, is 0.5% in two years and that it can be recovered by a two point drop in borrowing costs for businesses. This depends on the reduction in interest rates on public bonds because there is a direct relation (that cannot be eliminated) between sovereign risk and banking risk. This brings us back to the beginning: confidence from the world. If political parties that support this government, and not only them, if all productive and social forces of this Country, with the inevitable nuances, sensibilities and intelligence, prove with their behaviors that they are aware of the gravity of the situation, we can go on the uphill path and the savings and the work of Italians will go back to safety. Otherwise, we will fall back into the global whirlwind and we will pay with interest the already high tab of decades of delays.

An Italian government that recovers credibility and wins back confidence is the necessary condition for it to count in Europe in order to exchange fiscal discipline with more market, more growth and, most importantly, more resources for the EFSF bailout fund, persuading and overcoming German stubbornness. This is Monti's capital challenge but to win it people have to perceive that supporting him is a Country that is changing and that wants to change. The Prime Minister has to prove to know how to decide, those "wanted measures" that he announced will be the measuring stick with which Italians and the world will judge him.

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