Salvini. Le regole EU sul bilancio sono discutibili. – Bloomberg
«Italy could be ready to break European Union fiscal rules»
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«If we need to break some limits, like the 3% or the 130-140%, we’ll go ahead»
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«Until unemployment is halved in Italy, until we reach 5%, we’ll spend everything that we have to spend»
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«If someone in Brussels complains, that’s not our problem»
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«If there are European rules that are starving a continent, these rules must be changed»
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«Absolutely not, because Italians’ right to a job, life and health comes first»
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Ci si rende perfettamente conto come parlare di codesto argomento a campagna elettorale ancora in corso si presti a distorsione, anche grossolane: le campagne elettorali sono fatte con gli slogan che promettono cose poi impossibili da mantenersi.
Tuttavia Mr Salvini pone un problema reale e concreto: le leggi e le regole che non rispondessero più alle sfide da affrontare dovrebbero essere cassate oppure modificate.
In fondo, questo è il nucleo portante della Realpolitik: accettare i dati di fatto, piacciano o meno.
Quando furono emesse, le regole che imponevano un disavanzo massimo del 3% ed un certo quale rapporto ottimale debito / pil furono stabilite in un ben definito contesto economico. Occorrerebbe prendere atto che tutte le situazioni al contorno sono mutate. Mutate esse, dovrebbero mutare le regole.
Si aggiunga poi un altro fatto.
Il pil ppa procapite valeva 39,111 Usd a fine 2013 ed a fine 2017 valeva invece 36,870 Usd: durante il quinquennio di governo di questa Commissione Europea il pil ppa procapite è sceso, mentre quello degli Stati Uniti e della Cina è invece aumentato.
Questo semplice dato indicherebbe in modo evidente come ci sia qualcosa che non funziona nelle regolare che governano l’eurozona: ma le regole che non servono o, peggio, ostacolano, devono essere variate.
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Ma anche nazioni quali la Francia e la Spagna questo anno sforeranno abbondantemente la soglia del 3%: perché per loro sì e per l’Italia no?
Il problema posto da Mr Salvini è troppo importante per ridurlo a mero elemento di dialettica elettorale.
«Il tetto del 3% sul deficit rientra fra i cosiddetti parametri di Maastricht, i vincoli di bilancio fissati in occasione della firma del trattato omonimo nel 1992 ed entrati in vigore il 1 novembre 1993. ….
Esiste, però, anche una versione diversa dei fatti: il vincolo del deficit sarebbe frutto di una decisione del tutto arbitraria, dettata da esigenze politiche della sola Francia. ….
Nei programmi dei partiti per le Europee 2019 non si parla esplicitamente di violare i parametri di Maastricht, ricorrendo a una più generica avversione alla «austerity» imposta da Bruxelles» [Sole 24 Ore]
Già. Ma il 26 maggio si vota.
– League leader looks to retake initiative in run-up to EU vote
– Frenemy Di Maio rips Salvini on comments, without naming him
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Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini sent ripples through financial markets on Tuesday, saying Italy could be ready to break European Union fiscal rules, on the same day his coalition partner called on him to stop “fanning the flames” with critical comments about the government.
“If we need to break some limits, like the 3% or the 130-140%, we’ll go ahead,” League party chief Salvini told reporters in Verona, while campaigning ahead of this month’s European parliamentary elections. Salvini was referring to the bloc’s limits on budget deficits and government debt as a share of economic output.
Salvini’s remark triggered a new clash with his coalition partner and sometime rival, Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio of the Five Star Movement, who adopted a more investor-friendly stance.
“It’s quite irresponsible to let the spread rise the way it is doing right now with comments on exceeding the debt-to-GDP limit which is even more worrying than exceeding the deficit-to-GDP limit,” Di Maio told reporters in Perugia, Italy, without naming Salvini. Di Maio also referred to “shouting our mouths off on the debt-to-GDP.”
In an interview with la Repubblica published earlier Tuesday, Di Maio called on the League leader to tone down the internal attacks that have threatened the government’s shaky coexistence.
“Enough fanning the flames,” Di Maio told the daily newspaper, charging that Salvini’s aggressive tone has opened the door to extremist forces. “The ultra-right is a danger.”
Savvy campaigning and well-timed attacks against Five Star have made the League the dominant player in the government, with its support rising since the two parties took office in June.
‘Not Our Problem’
But after a week in which the League suffered its first major political defeat in just under a year in government and took losses in local elections in Sicily, Salvini’s comments Tuesday may have been a bid to retake the initiative; Brussels-bashing has been a popular campaign theme for both Five Star and the League, which are contesting the European elections separately.
“Until unemployment is halved in Italy, until we reach 5%, we’ll spend everything that we have to spend,” Salvini said. “If someone in Brussels complains, that’s not our problem.”
Yields on Italian two-year bonds climbed as much as 10 basis points to 0.72%, the highest level since Feb. 8. The 10-year yield spread over Germany rose five basis points to 282 basis points, a three-month high.
Di Maio told Repubblica he won’t step down as party leader if the Movement scores under 20% in the European elections and that the results won’t lead to a cabinet reshuffle, with more ministries going to the League, which is widely expected to emerge as the larger party after the vote.
That outcome would flip the script of last year’s national election, when Five Star finished first. The League has not requested the premiership in the event it becomes the largest party in the coalition, Di Maio said. Salvini taking over as premier is “a scenario that doesn’t exist,” Di Maio told Repubblica.
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European Union budget regulations are “starving the continent” and must be changed, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Wednesday, a day after he roiled financial markets by saying Italy should be ready to break the rules.
Salvini sent markets into a spin after saying on Tuesday that Rome should be willing to break the EU’s deficit ceiling of 3% of gross domestic product and push debt to 140% of GDP if necessary, to lower unemployment.
His right-wing League party is campaigning along with other eurosceptic parties for European Parliament elections on May 26, but his comments are unnerving investors in Italian debt.
“If there are European rules that are starving a continent, these rules must be changed,” Salvini told reporters when asked about his comments on Tuesday, which sent Italy’s 10-year bond yield to a two-month high and pushed the spread between Italian and German yields to their widest level in three months.
On Wednesday, investor fears spread to the Italian share market and rippled through stocks across Europe.
Asked if he was worried that his remarks were widening the spread, he said: “Absolutely not, because Italians’ right to a job, life and health comes first.”
At 132 percent of GDP, Italian debt is proportionally the second-highest in the euro zone after Greece.
Salvini has repeatedly criticized EU rules since becoming League leader in 2013, but his latest attack came at a time of heightened sensitivity to Italian risk due to broader investor nervousness, the proximity of the European Parliament elections and after a lackluster Italian bond auction on Tuesday.
His remarks also elicited a further show of discord between Italy’s ruling parties, with the League’s coalition partner, the 5-Star Movement, criticizing the comments on possibly hiking the debt as “irresponsible”.
Giuseppe Sandro Mela
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