Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Fitch, giù rating dell'Italia Mario gode: "Sono bravo"

Bene Bot e spread, ma l'agenzia ci declassa da A+ ad A-. Il premier: "Sotto 
accusa non è il mio governo". Rischio fuga di miliardi 
 
 

 accusa non è il mio governo". Rischio fuga di miliardi di stronzi.
 
scrive il FINANCIAL TIMES:
 
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a209e0b2-4769-11e1-b847-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1khqKG1EO
 
 
Europe rests on Monti’s shoulders
 
Philip Stephens By Philip Stephens
Ferguson illustration
 
Italy is back. Germany’s Angela Merkel sits at the top of Europe’s
power list. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy can lay claim to be the
continent’s most energetic leader. Mario Monti is its most
interesting. After an absence lasting a couple of decades Italy has
returned to the stage. Mr Monti’s fate may turn out to be Europe’s.
 
The other day the White House said that Italy’s prime minister would
soon meet Barack Obama. To describe its announcement as effusive would
be an understatement. Mr Monti and the president would discuss “the
comprehensive steps the Italian government is taking to restore market
confidence and reinvigorate growth through structural reform, as well
as the prospect of an expansion of Europe’s financial firewall”.
Translate and you get: “Mr Obama is behind Mr Monti all the way –
including when he puts pressure on Ms Merkel.”
More
On this story
 
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    Monti warns of political backlash
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    Austerity package key to Italy averting collapse
 
FROM Philip Stephens
 
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    Philip Stephens Downgrade ratings agencies
    Awkward truths in the torture debate
    How a self-sufficient America could go it alone
 
There was a time when Italy had something to say in Europe. The
Italians championed the great integrationist leap of the 1980s. The
Milan summit in 1985 gave the push for the single market. Five years
later a meeting in Rome set the timetable for the euro. This provided
the occasion, incidentally, for the toppling of Margaret Thatcher: her
“No, No, No” to the single currency stirred a Tory rebellion. Strange
as it seems, British Conservatives were once mostly pro-Europeans.
 
The era of Silvio Berlusconi put an end to Italian influence. Though
always assured of a warm welcome from Vladimir Putin, Mr Berlusconi
was shunned by his European Union peers – seen by turns as a cause of
irritation and embarrassment. Mr Monti, a serious-minded academic with
a serious plan, is different in every dimension. Mr Berlusconi made
crude jokes about Ms Merkel’s appearance. Mr Monti talks to her about
economics.
 
There is a second Italian at the top table. Mario Draghi – the other
Mario – has made his own headlines during his short presidency of the
European Central Bank. As far as economic orthodoxy goes, Mr Draghi
styles himself an honorary German. Yet a big refinancing operation
launched under his direction – quantitative easing by another name –
has propped up the banking system and calmed financial markets.
 
The ECB scheme is not a permanent fix, but it has given the
politicians space to negotiate Ms Merkel’s precious fiscal compact.
For all the ever-present shadow of Greece, there are signs that the
euro crisis is passing from an acute to a chronic phase.
 
Mr Monti matters because it is in Italy that the euro’s long-term
prospects will be decided. If Greece does fall by the wayside,
Ireland, Portugal and Spain will be in the line of fire. Italy,
though, is the pivotal player. If the eurozone’s third-largest economy
cannot chart a credible economic course, the euro does not have a
future as a pan-European project.
 
Mr Monti has a couple of cards to play. His austerity measures are
already proving unpopular but Italy’s elected politicians are scarcely
in good shape. Mr Berlusconi snipes from the sidelines but his centre-
right coalition would be crushed in a snap election. So Mr Monti
thinks he has another year – until scheduled elections in spring 2013
– to get his strategy up and running.
 
The second card is that he can speak truth to German power. His record
as a liberal reformer in the EU Commission is indisputable. His
demeanour defies every stereotype of the feckless southern European.
Oh, and Mr Obama is right behind him when he tells Ms Merkel that
indefinite austerity would turn a fiscal into a suicide pact.
 
I suspect Mr Sarkozy rather resents Mr Monti’s intrusion. The French
president is not one to share the limelight. Until now Paris has
sustained the pretence that leadership belongs to the Franco-German
partnership. In truth, the chemistry between the president and
chancellor is anything but good.
 
As it happens, Mr Sarkozy has more interest in Mr Monti’s success than
most. Whenever I meet the French elites, as at the latest Franco-
British Colloque, I am struck by their insistence that survival of the
euro is existential. What they mean, I think, is that the break-up of
the single currency would see France tipped into Europe’s second
economic tier – and rob it of any remaining claim to global influence.
 
There is no guarantee that Mr Monti will succeed. Big spending cuts
and tax increases are one thing. The real test will come in
liberalising the economy. Here he confronts a honeycomb of closed
shops, restrictive practices and rent-seeking cartels. This week
Italian cities have been thrown into chaos by taxi drivers and truck
operators. Lawyers, pharmacists and petrol-station operators are also
up in arms at plans to strip away their privileges. This will not be
easy.
 
The choices are unavoidable. The debate about the future of the
eurozone is hopelessly polarised. On one side stand those who say the
enterprise can be saved only if Catholic southern Europe absorbs the
Protestant north’s culture of thrift and hard work. On the other side
are those who say that all would be well if only the Germans were
ready to spend and borrow more and underwrite the debts of their
southern neighbours. Both sets of arguments are hopelessly naive.
 
The challenge facing Europe – one crystallised by the euro crisis – is
to adapt to a world in which it can no longer dictate the terms of
exchange. Policymakers and economists can argue all they like about
the merits and demerits of devaluation or fine-tuning the balance
between fiscal rectitude and support for demand. The big question is
whether Europe can compete in a world over which the west no longer
holds sway. That’s why what Mr Monti is doing in Italy really does
matter.
 

 "Sotto accusa non è il mio governo". Rischio fuga di miliardi
 
Hanno l'alibi definitivo: qualunque errore lo spiegheranno come effetto 
prolungato dei precedenti governi. Anzi, si prenderanno pure il merito di 
averne attenuato l'effetto, perché senza di loro sarebbe andata peggio.
 
Se subiremo l'ennesimo downgrade di un punto, loro diranno che la colpa è di 
Berlusconi e aggiungeranno che, se non fossero arrivati loro, di punti ne 
avremmo persi 3. Nel frattempo le aziende falliscono, le libere professioni 
sono state distrutte, gli operai muoiono di fame e loro si fregano le mani 
perché la Merkel si dice soddisfatta.
 
 
 
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