EN 
 
 
OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK 
of 17 March 2009 
at the request of the Italian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance  
on a draft Ministerial decree on the management of  the Treasury availability account held with the 
Banca d'Italia   
(CON/2009/23) 
 
Introduction and legal basis  
On 6 February 2009 the European Central Bank (ECB ) received a request from the Italian Ministry of 
Economic Affairs and Finance (MEF) for an opinion on a draft Ministerial decree on the management of 
the Treasury availability account held with the Banca d'Italia  (hereinafter the ‘draft decree’). 
The ECB’s competence to deliver an  opinion is based on Article 105(4) of the Treaty establishing the 
European Community and the third indent of Article 2(1) of Council Decision 98/415/EC of 29 June 1998 
on the consultation of the European Central Bank by  national authorities regarding draft legislative 
provisions1, as the draft decree relates to the Banca d’It alia. In accordance with the first sentence of 
Article 17.5 of the Rules of Procedure of the Europ ean Central Bank, the Governing Council has adopted 
this opinion. 
 1. Purpose of the draft decree 
1.1 The draft decree contains implementing provisions required by Article 5(5) of the Law on 
consolidation of legislative provisions and re gulations on public debt (hereinafter the 
‘2003 Consolidated Law’), which regulates the Trea sury availability account held with the Banca 
d’Italia
2. Article 2(39) of the 2008 Budget Law3 amended Article 5(5) to improve the current 
remuneration regime, in particular in connection with the liquidity forecasts, thus facilitating the 
implementation of monetary policy, as also indicat ed in the explanatory memorandum to the draft 
decree.  
                                                 
1  OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42.  
2 Presidential Decree No 398 of 30 December 2003 ( Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica italiana No 57, 9.3.2004, S.O.).  
3  Law No 244 of 24 December 2007 ( Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica italiana No 300, 28.12.2007,  S.O.).  
2 1.2 On entry into force of the 2008 Budget Law,  Decree-Law No 248 suspended the application of 
Article 2(39) on the new remuneration regime4, pending ECB Opinion CON/2008/105. The opinion 
analysed whether the proposed ch anges to Article 5(5) of the 200 3 Consolidated Law contravene 
the objectives of the monetary financing prohibition under Article 101 of the Treaty. It also analysed the implications for monetary policy implementation.  
 2. General observations 2.1 The draft decree is required to implement th e reform improving the remuneration regime and 
liquidity management. The ECB welcomes the ongoing efforts to improve the management procedures (OPTES) for deposit balances held by the MEF with the Banca d’Italia. The draft decree 
represents a significant improvement compared to past practices. Its scope is limited to monetary policy implementation. In the light of the stance taken in its Opinion CON/2008/10, the ECB also considers that, pending appropriate amendments to Article 5(5) of the 2003 Consolidated Law also 
from the point of view of the legislation’s complia nce with the monetary financing prohibition, in 
particular with regards to the remuneration of the Treasury account, the issue remains open and the 
ECB's views in its past opinion remain unchanged
6. Given the importance of this matter, the ECB 
expects therefore to be consulted on any furt her legislative initiatives addressing remuneration, 
which the ECB understands are under preparation, as also announced in the last paragraph of the 
explanatory memorandum to the draft decree.  
2.2 Article 4 of the draft decree refers to public de bt management operations to be performed by the 
Banca d’Italia in the form of auctions, cred it or debit transfers or bilateral negotiations7. Taking into 
account the express recognition in Article 21.2 of th e Statute of the European System of Central 
Banks and of the European Cent ral Bank of the provision of fiscal agency services as a legitimate 
function traditionally performed by central banks8, the ECB notes that provision by central banks of 
fiscal agency services should comply with the moneta ry financing prohibition, provided that such 
services remain within the field of the fiscal ag ency function and do not constitute central bank 
financing of public sector obliga tions vis-à-vis third parties9 or central bank crediting of the public 
                                                 
4  See Article 42 of Decree-Law No 248 of 31 December 2007 containing provisions on the extensions of deadlines 
provided for by law and urgent measur es in financial matters, converted into Law No 31 of 28 February 2008 ( Gazzetta 
Ufficiale della Repubblica italiana No 51, 29.2.2008, S.O.).  
5  ECB Opinion CON/2008/10 of 21 February 2008 at the request of the Italian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance 
on some provisions of the Law on the State a nnual and pluriannual budget (2008 Budget Law). 
6  See paragraph 3.4 of ECB Opinion CON/2008/10. 
7  See Article 4(1) to (3), together with Article 3(1) and recital 17 of the draft decree. 
8  See the ECB’s Convergence Report of May 2008, p. 24, sta ting that ‘The purpose of Article 21.2 of the Statute was to 
enable NCBs, following transfer of the monetary policy compet ence to the Eurosystem, to continue to conduct the fiscal 
agent service traditionally provided by central banks to governments and other public entities without automatically 
breaching the monetary financing prohibition.’ 
9  I.e. one of the prohibited forms of monetary financing; s ee Article 1(1)(b)(ii) of Council Regulation (EC) No 3603/93 of 
13 December 1993 specifying definitions for the application of th e prohibitions referred to in Articles 104 [now 101] and 
104b(1) [now 103(1)] of the Treaty (OJ L 332, 31.12.1993, p. 1). See the ECB’s Convergence Report of May 2008, 
p. 233, which states with re ference to the provision by Česká národní banka of administra tive and financial support to the 
3 sector outside the narrowly defined exceptions specified in Regulation (EC) No 3603/9310. Against 
this background, the ECB trusts that the tasks assi gned to the Banca d’Italia under the draft decree 
will be performed in compliance with the prohi bition on monetary financing laid down in 
Article 101 of the Treaty and Regulation (EC) No 3603/93. 
 3. Specific observations 3.1 OPTES procedures  
3.1.1 In its Opinion CON/2008/10
11, the ECB, in supporting any attempt to reduce forecasting errors in 
liquidity management, generally welcomed the dr aft 2008 Budget Law in so far as it attempted to 
make the forecasts of government deposits at the Ban ca d’Italia more reliable, given the particular 
nature of the management procedures (OPTES) for government deposits in Italy. Therefore, it 
urged the Italian government to implemen t the proposed reform as soon as possible12. Moreover, 
the ECB indicated that, without knowing in detail the rules for liquidity management, which would be regulated by a later MEF decree, it was not possible to conclusively assess the future 
government deposit management procedures
13. This opinion assesses those detailed rules as laid 
down in the draft decree.  
3.1.2 The ECB expects the resulting OPTES procedures as a relevant step to address the most immediate 
liquidity management weaknesses in the curre nt OPTES scheme. This includes providing for 
symmetrical conduct of OPTES operations, both liqui dity providing and liquidity absorbing, 
without the MEF’s intervention and a mechanism for steering more precisely the end-of-day 
balance on the availability account with a view to preventing same day forecasting errors. 
3.1.3 The ECB recommends introducing quickly the rema ining legal acts, as detailed below, required to 
define a fully functional OPTES framework. Only at  that stage will a comprehensive evaluation of 
the framework be possible. The ECB also r ecommends modifying the OPTES scheme, in the 
medium term so that the banking system rather th an the Banca d’Italia hol ds almost all government 
deposits at the end of the day. Such a scheme would not only be the most robust solution for reducing forecast errors on government deposits, but  would also lead to a reduced size and 
fluctuations in the banking system’s refinancing needs. 
 
                                                                                                                                                             
Financial Arbitrator, an administrative body entirely independe nt from the central bank, ‘constitutes a form of central 
bank financing of the public sector’s obligations’. 
10  See Article 4 (non-extendable intra-day credits), Article 5 (crediting, under specified conditions, the public sector’s 
account with cheques issued by third parties) and Article 6 (holding, within specified limits, coins issued by and credited 
to the public sector) of Re gulation (EC) No 3603/93.  
11  See paragraph 3.5.1 of ECB Opinion CON/2008/10. 
12  See paragraph 3.5.2 of ECB Opinion CON/2008/10. 
13  See paragraph 3.5.3 of ECB Opinion CON/2008/10. 
4 3.2 Implementation of monetary policy 
3.2.1 The draft decree by itself is not sufficient to  enable one to judge whether the measures to be 
implemented for the management of government  deposits will reduce forecasting errors and 
improve overall the scheme for the management of government deposits as outlined above. The 
detailed rules will only be further clarified in a s ubsequent technical decree, as mentioned in the 
explanatory memorandum14. Without knowing the details of this technical decree, it is not possible 
for the ECB to conclusively assess future government deposit procedures in Italy. 
3.2.2 The ECB notes that the current draft decr ee further supports the changes initiated by the 
2008 Budget Law, which the ECB assessed fav ourably in ECB Opinion CON/2008/10. In 
particular, the draft decree is more explicit re garding the conduct of le nding operations, which once 
introduced could greatly improve the performance of OPTES with respect to avoiding forecasting 
errors and biases.   
3.2.3 Article 3 of the draft decree does not prevent the MEF from still exercising discretionary influence 
over the Banca d’Italia’s conduct of liquidity operations under OPTES. These operations must 
follow an automatic procedure, which initiates tr ansactions once the balances are above or below 
the forecast threshold sent to Banca d’Italia. In particular, as stated in ECB Opinion CON/2008/10, 
the procedures should in any event leave no scope  for the liquidity operations under OPTES to be 
specified in accordance with interest rates. 
3.2.4 The explanatory memorandum mentions that a subsequent ministerial decree, as referred to in 
Article 6 of the draft decree, will specify the fina ncial assets that can be used as guarantees in the 
context of lending operations. The ECB urges the MEF to adopt provisions on the financial assets 
to be used in these operations as soon as possible to implement the changes provided for by the 
2008 Budget Law which aim to reduce for ecasting errors in the OPTES procedures. 
 This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website.  Done at Frankfurt am Main, 17 March 2009. 
 
[signed] 
 
The President of the ECB 
Jean-Claude TRICHET 
                                                 
14  Such a decree would be similar to  Ministerial Decree No 64302 of 16 June 2006,  which specifies in detail the current 
OPTES procedures.