The Minister of Economy Roberto Gualtieri went to Brussels to look for some small concessions to alleviate the hot political climate created in Italy following the forthcoming signing of the reform of the Mes - European Mechanism Save States: "The possibility of a sub-aggregation of the securities in a mechanism that makes the clauses of collective action, in the process of restructuring a country's debt, more similar to the current mechanism was accepted.».
It will be more difficult to impose the restructuring of the debt of that country that is asking for a loan from the ESM fund. Gualtieri also indicated that in the roadmap for the banking union negotiation there will be no reference to the risk weighting of national sovereign bonds held by banks. Finally, for the financial parachute of last resort for the resolution of banks (orderly liquidation) "all conditionalities have been eliminated"
The 19 leaders of the euro area next week will only have to take note of the presentation of the agreement to the Eurogroup, next March there will be the technical, legal and political improvement.
The discussion on the banking union was long and difficult, Gualtieri reported: "blocked" the agreement on the letter that the president of the Eurogroup will send to the heads of state and government in which there was talk of an "agreement in principle" on everything . The only discordant note is the statement by President Mario Centeno who immediately said no to the reopening of Pandora's box, that is, the text agreed in June on the reform of the Mes treaty.
However, writes Il Messaggero, the Eurogroup has discussed at length the hypothesis of continuing discussions on the conditions for making the collective action clauses operational to facilitate the possible restructuring of the debt and, in fact, not to change the agreement on the text of the treaty. At this point there should be the conditions to sign the new treaty in February if Italy confirms the appreciation of Gualtieri. It has long been known that the signature would be postponed because the legally valid translations would not be ready.
Mario Centeno also wanted to remove all doubts: “The signing will be there soon, at the beginning of next year”.
Problems, however, have been recorded over the recognition of the principle of simplifying the voting system of holders of public securities in the event of a restructuring of the debt of a State that requests a loan from the ESM and has a debt deemed unsustainable. A simplification that consists in the passage from double vote to single vote of a single assembly, representing all sovereign creditors and holders of government bonds of all series. There is currently a dual system that facilitates the blocking of restructuring and favors minority creditors. Italy wants to maintain "the elasticities of the dual limb model (double majority) and in some cases even increases it)" so that the vote of the bondholders can be expressed for aggregate groups by differentiating their positions. In essence, it is a question of curbing the facilitation of restructuring.
Thus Luigi Di Maio on the Mes: "Setting the signature for the Mes is useless, if the changes are not known before". Two currents within the Movement, one markedly pro-European alongside the Democratic Party and another, that of Di Maio closer to the ideas of the Salvinian center-right.
Tense nerves in the majority
To the good intentions of Minister Roberto Gualtieri there is the MoVimento delle Stelle which is increasingly a victim, as mentioned, of internal currents. To further exacerbate the debate is Alessandro Di Battista who, together with Di Maio, have been keeping the Government on a razor's edge for days: they want 200 percent reassurance as regards the Mes, the pockets of Italians must not be touched in any way.
Prescription node
Italia Viva, on the other hand, threatens to vote together with Forza Italia, in order to stop the blocking of the prescription that starts on January XNUMXst. The processes "If the Democratic Party wants to vote on a law with Lega and Forza Italia to bring back the prescription as it was conceived by Berlusconi, it will be a Nazarene 2.0, but I don't think it will happen " Di Maio told Gr1 Rai yesterday morning. He immediately echoed him Di Battista"Luigi is right. Point. Whoever blocks our reform will take responsibility for it. They will not do it because if they went to the early vote many Renzians would remain at home (inside and outside the Democratic Party), without parliamentary immunity, at risk of wiretapping and, never like today, this does not suit them ".
The premier, Giuseppe Conte, throws water on the fire: "There is a technical table where we are finding a solution to develop a system of guarantees that ensure the reasonable duration of the process. Minister Bonafede said: "My proposal was already presented at the beginning of October. I expect loyalty from the Democratic Party, if it is a question of working to ensure short process times, it has given availability a thousand times ".
Then also Di Maio in the late evening follows the declarations of Conte and the loyal Bonafede: "With the Democratic Party we are working well, I'm sure that the prescription will make the right choice ".