Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Quello che ha scritto lo Wsj (integrale) 1

 
BERLIN—On a chilly October evening in her austere chancellery, Angela Merkel 
placed a confidential call to Rome to help save the euro.
 
Two years after the European debt crisis erupted in little Greece, the 
unthinkable had happened: Investors were fleeing the government debt of 
Italy—one of the world's biggest economies. If the selloff couldn't be 
stopped, Italy would go down, taking with it Europe's shared currency.
Her phone call that night to the 16th-century Quirinale Palace, once a 
residence of popes, now home to Italy's octogenarian head of state, 
President Giorgio Napolitano, trod on delicate ground for a German 
chancellor. Europe's leaders have an unwritten rule not to intervene in one 
another's domestic politics. But Ms. Merkel was gently prodding Italy to 
change its prime minister, if the incumbent—Silvio Berlusconi—couldn't 
change Italy.
Details of Ms. Merkel's diplomatic channel to Rome haven't previously been 
reported.
 
Her impatience shows the extent to which Italy's woes undid Europe's 
strategy to fight the crisis. Until then, Europe had followed a simple 
formula to preserve the euro: The financially strong would save the weak. 
But Italy, with nearly €2 trillion, or about $2.6 trillion, in national 
debt, was simply too big to save.
This Wall Street Journal reconstruction, based on interviews with more than 
two dozen policy makers, including many leading actors, as well as 
examinations of key documents, reveals how Germany responded to the dangers 
in Italy by imposing its power on a divided euro zone. Ms. Merkel, widely 
criticized for not dealing forcefully with the crisis in its early phase, 
was at the center of the action, grappling with personal tensions and 
Byzantine politics among the 17 euro nations.
As well as nudging Mr. Berlusconi off the stage, Ms. Merkel had to smooth 
out her volatile relationship with France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The 
Franco-German couple eventually overcame many of their differences—and Mr. 
Berlusconi—only to be blindsided by fresh political chaos in Greece.
Europe's crisis is rooted in deep worries about government debt and economic 
imbalances inside the euro zone. Those concerns have scared bond investors 
away from Europe's weaker states, leaving some, like Greece, without access 
to money with which to refinance or repay their debts. The great danger is 
that Italy might join them.
Greece and others were small enough to rescue with international bailouts. 
But an Italian default could severely hurt Europe's, and the world's, 
financial system, perhaps triggering a worse global slump than the 2008 
failure of Lehman Brothers did.
The scramble to shore up investor confidence in Italy led to simmering 
arguments over how to pay for a financial safety net. Europe's leaders were 
reluctantly realizing that living with a common currency meant surrendering 
more of their national independence than they had bargained for.
France and others urged drawing on the virtually unlimited firepower of the 
European Central Bank. But German strictures and the central bank's own 
reluctance to bail out governments—for fear of igniting inflation or 
rewarding profligacy—frustrated that idea.
And while German pressure helped bring about a new, reform-minded government 
in Italy, today Europe is still fighting to save the euro. The battle ahead 
looks daunting.
The euro zone, which accounts for nearly 20% of global economic activity, is 
sliding into recession. France and other countries are struggling to save 
their credit ratings. And Italy must borrow some €400 billion in 2012.
It's far from clear whether investors are willing to loan such amounts. On 
Thursday, Italy sold €7 billion in bonds, less than the full amount it had 
targeted. Investors demanded a yield of nearly 7% on 10-year lending, a 
painfully high rate.
From the dawn of the crisis in late 2009, Europe's leaders knew they had to 
avoid a bond-market run on Italy, given its big economy and towering pile of 
debt. But it was their own handling of Greece that helped spur just such a 
run. A July 21 decision to restructure Greece's bond debt, which saddled 
private investors with losses, set a precedent that made many investors wary 
of lending to any indebted euro members.
Italian politics unnerved the market further. Mr. Berlusconi fell out with 
his finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, considered a steady hand on Italy's 
tiller.
"Tremonti thinks he's a genius and everyone else is a cretin," Mr. 
Berlusconi said in his office, adding that his finance chief was "not a team 
player," according to a person familiar with the matter. Rumors swirled that 
Mr. Tremonti might resign, pushing Italy's borrowing costs to a euro-era 
high. That made it ever tougher for Italy to climb out of its financial 
hole.
When the market rout worsened on Aug. 3, Mr. Berlusconi gave a defiant 
speech before parliament declaring that his policies "have been judged 
adequate by Europe."
Two days later, the ECB contradicted him in a secret letter. Italy's 
deficit-cutting plan was "not sufficient," ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet 
and his anointed successor, Mario Draghi, wrote to Mr. Berlusconi. The 
letter said Italy needed extensive economic overhaul to boost growth, and it 
set out detailed demands including greater competition, labor-market 
deregulation, reduced pension largess, a slimmer bureaucracy and deeper 
public spending cuts.
The implicit message: These reforms were the conditions for ECB intervention 
in the bond market.
Rome was furious. Mr. Tremonti would later privately tell a group of 
European finance ministers that his government had received two threatening 
letters in August: one from a terrorist group, the other from the ECB. "The 
one from the ECB was worse," he quipped.
Mr. Berlusconi gave in. On Sunday, Aug. 7, he faxed a letter to the ECB 
pledging far-reaching reforms and deeper budget cuts.
Mr. Trichet deemed Rome's reply satisfactory, and the next day, the ECB for 
the first time began buying Italian bonds, calming investors and giving them 
renewed confidence to buy Italian debt themselves. Rome's borrowing costs 
declined.
But at home in Italy, Mr. Berlusconi's reforms faced political resistance. 
He wavered.
Messrs. Trichet and Draghi phoned to press Mr. Berlusconi to honor his 
promises. European Union President Herman Van Rompuy also called and asked 
him to take the crisis more seriously. "Otherwise," Mr. Van Rompuy told him, 
"we are all in trouble."
On Aug. 31, Italian media reported that Mr. Berlusconi had told his advisers 
he was giving up on pension reform, a key ECB demand.
Investors resumed their flight from Italy. The ECB let Italian bond yields 
rise again. The episode appeared to confirm the fears of the German faction 
at the ECB: Politicians would revert to bad behavior if given a reprieve 
from market pressures.
The crisis had reached a scale that menaced the global economy. The ECB 
wasn't going to save Italy. Europe's other governments didn't know where 
else to turn. 
 


 
 
Mi viene da ridere pensando che ora la culona inchiavabile e giorgio il 
terrone negaranno tutto... e che Wsj non solo confermerà ma documenterà le 
sue affermazioni.