{"id":19210,"date":"2019-12-02T14:56:58","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T12:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/?p=19210"},"modified":"2019-12-02T14:56:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T12:56:58","slug":"italys-divided-populists-unite-over-eu-bailout-fund-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/archives\/19210","title":{"rendered":"Italy\u2019s Divided Populists Unite Over EU Bailout Fund Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"
By\u00a0John Follain\u00a0and\u00a0Alessandro Speciale<\/span><\/div>\n
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(Bloomberg) —\u00a0<\/span><\/section>\n
A common Euroskeptic cause is bringing Italy\u2019s rival populists closer and threatening the country\u2019s coalition government.<\/span><\/p>\n

The issue at hand — a relatively minor reform of the European Union\u2019s bailout fund — is usually the preserve of Brussels and treasury bureaucrats. But\u00a0Matteo Salvini\u00a0and\u00a0Luigi Di Maio, who became bitter enemies this summer after their governing alliance fell apart, are both opposed to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Caught in the middle are Prime Minister\u00a0Giuseppe Conte\u00a0and the pro-EU Democratic Party, partners in the current government with Di Maio\u2019s Five Star Movement. Conte is due to appear in parliament on Monday to respond to suggestions he explicitly violated lawmakers\u2019 demands when he struck a deal on the EU fund at a summit last June.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cConte has carried out an attack that harms Italians,\u201d Salvini, head of the rightist League, told reporters last week, accusing the premier of agreeing to the changes in secret. \u201cLet Salvini file a suit, and I\u2019ll sue him for slander,\u201d Conte retorted on a visit to Ghana.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read More: Italy\u2019s Messy Coalition Could Delay EU Bailout Fund Reform<\/span><\/p>\n

Five Star leader Di Maio, who\u2019s also foreign minister and is trying to reverse his party\u2019s decline in the polls, has fueled tensions with his coalition partner by demanding changes to the European Stability Mechanism reform. Conte so far has stuck by\u00a0Roberto Gualtieri, his finance minister and a former EU lawmaker for the Democrats who closely followed the negotiations in Brussels.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFive Star is seeking a constructive approach and aims to find an agreement,\u201d despite our opposition to the reform, the party said in a statement late Saturday. \u201cLet\u2019s get to work, improve this reform and make Europe respect us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Amendments in Focus<\/span><\/h3>\n

EU leaders are poised to give a unanimous, final go-ahead to the reform of the ESM in Brussels on Dec. 12-13, but Italian media reported Saturday that Conte may ask to delay the approval and seek to introduce some changes. Gualtieri has prepared proposals for amendments to the reform draft that would allow it to pass without a delay and yet respect Di Maio\u2019s call for changes, La Repubblica reported on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nicola Zingaretti, leader of Italy\u2019s Democrats, called Di Maio\u2019s request to change the reforms a \u201csenseless challenge to Europe,\u201d in comments cited by newspaper La Repubblica.\u00a0Paolo Gentiloni, Italy\u2019s former premier who is now the European commissioner for economic affairs, said there is no \u201ctechnical or political reason to define the reform as a risk for Italy,\u201d according to his interview with Corriere della Sera on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The changes are set to give the ESM broader powers, including allowing it to serve as the lifeline for the currency bloc\u2019s crisis fund for failing banks. Bureaucrats consider that generally less controversial than other potential tweaks to the framework of the euro area, such as a small common budget and joint insurance for bank deposits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leaders of the Democrats agree there is no need to ask the EU for further amendments to the measure and back the finance minister in his efforts to approve the existing deal, Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini said after a meeting on Sunday. PD officials said after the meeting that Italy will request any delay.<\/span><\/p>\n

Italian opponents of ESM reform have seized upon the apparent coldness toward some parts of it by leading technocrats including\u00a0Ignazio Visco, governor of the Bank of Italy, and\u00a0Maria Cannata, the former head of the debt agency.<\/span><\/p>\n

Debt Crisis Response<\/span><\/h3>\n

Among the items under scrutiny are norms that might make it theoretically easier to restructure Italy\u2019s public debt, Europe\u2019s largest, spooking investors and potentially pushing yields higher. Both Visco and Cannata have clarified that they support the final version of the ESM reform.<\/span><\/p>\n

The debate has ballooned into all-out criticism of the ESM and of its procedures, set up by euro-area countries in 2012 after the years-long sovereign debt crisis to bail out countries in exchange for strict reforms.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have sparked a debate on the ESM. Finally Italians know something about it, and only thanks to the League,\u201d Salvini said on Saturday. \u201cIt\u2019s good that Di Maio finally woke\u00a0up to\u00a0it; we count on the coherence of Five Star and of some of the Democrats. Conte, on the other hand, has long stopped defending Italy\u2019s national interests.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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By\u00a0John Follain\u00a0and\u00a0Alessandro Speciale (Bloomberg) —\u00a0 A common Euroskeptic cause is bringing Italy\u2019s rival populists closer and threatening the country\u2019s coalition government. The issue at hand — a relatively minor reform of the European Union\u2019s bailout fund — is usually the preserve of Brussels and treasury bureaucrats. But\u00a0Matteo Salvini\u00a0and\u00a0Luigi Di Maio, who became bitter enemies this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19210"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19215,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19210\/revisions\/19215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}