Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, during his last speech at the EU Parliament before its dissolution, declared that with the uncertainty that persists and that "questions the very existence of the EU", and the shadow of the recession that extends over the Eurozone, the European Central Bank begins to reload its weapons. "The current position is already very accommodating", but "if there was a recession, the ECB would have the necessary tools".
The celebrations in Strasbourg for the twenty years of the euro are an opportunity to remember how much work has been done in recent years to get out of the worst recession after World War II.
Draghi speaks of "geopolitical uncertainty", which "questions the pillars on which the post World War II order was built, questions the EU, has to do with Brexit, the denial of the multilateral system". All elements that contribute to the slowdown in the economy. For this reason, the ECB remains vigilant and "evaluates" the situation, ready to intervene if needed.
In the meantime, the president tries to give an injection of confidence to the EU, which has emerged from the crisis “thanks to the energy of its citizens”, and to the support that their politicians have given to the euro. An effort that must continue without hesitation, he added.
For Jean Claude Juncker, President of the Commission, it is also an opportunity to be self-critical: "We have not been sufficiently in solidarity with Greece and the Greeks", he told MEPs, during the celebrations of the achievements of the common currency in its first 20 years.
During the debt crisis “there was reckless austerity”, stubbornly imposed from the first country that ended up in trouble, namely Greece. Commended only belatedly, which is when she left the aid program last summer.
"Some mistakes have been made, it's nice if they are admitted", commented Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. Duro is vice-premier Luigi Di Maio who, referring to the errors admitted by Juncker, declared: “Crocodile tears don't move me. Juncker and all his acolytes have devastated the lives of thousands of families with insane cuts as they threw 1 billion euros a year into waste like the double Parliament in Strasbourg. These are errors that are paid for ”.
The economy minister Giovanni Tria is more cautious, explaining how the self-criticism of the European institution that most believed in the recipes of austerity can however be useful in this phase of uncertainty and fears about the near future. Also because, 10 years after the great crisis, Europe "has not yet understood what it must do" and is "obsessed with procedures" risking collapse, especially "if it feeds divergences instead of convergences and does not address the issue of a greater cooperation ". And the minister himself, from Moscow, launches an alarm on the uncertainty that characterizes the global economic situation, explaining that in Italy it is already producing effects: "We foresee a situation of stagnation, I hope temporary, this is what the data say".