Italy’s finance minister INCREDIBLY blames nation’s banking crisis… ON BREXIT

As said in the previous post about Italy, it’s convenient to blame others for your problem to keep the attention away.

 

BRITAIN’S vote to leave the European Union (EU) is to blame for the disastrous state of Italy’s banks – and not Rome’s heavily criticised policymakers – according to the finance minister.

Pier Carlo Padoan has sought to deflect attention from himself against allegations the Italian government could have prevented the country’s current banking crisis by laying fault with the Brexit vote, despite the financial crisis hugely pre-dating the referendum.

The minister said instability of several of the banks aren’t the cause of the turmoil now rocking the Italian financial system, reported German newspaper Spiegel.

IMF Warns Of “Global Contagion” From Italy’s Bank Crisis; Forecasts Two-Decade Long Recession

Piling on to Italy’s growing mountain of worries, this evening the IMF itself warned that Europe’s third largest economy would grow by less than 1% this year and only marginally faster in 2017, slashing its previous forecasts of 1.1% and 1.25% growth for the next two years, mostly as a result of the most convenient scapegoat available in Europe at the moment: Brexit (which has become to Europe as “cold weather” has been to the US for the past two years).

Christine Lagarde’s organization said Italy was “recovering gradually from a deep and protracted recession”, but said the healing process was likely to be “prolonged and subject to risks”. It used its article IV consultation – an annual economic and financial health check – to stress that Italy was vulnerable to a cocktail of threats that could have knock-on effects for the rest of Europe and the world.

Italy in favour of European Monetary Fund

Italy is in favour of tighter European integration and the creation of a European Monetary Fund, its finance minister said Tuesday.

“The monetary union will sooner or later have to be based on common elements… in my opinion a European monetary fund, an insurance mechanism against the shocks of the labour markets, shared budget resources,” Pier Carlo Padoan said.

Italy’s Pier Carlo Padoan calls for ‘political union’ to save euro

A United States of Europe with Germany’s Fourth Reich at the helm is coming.

Countries such as Italy and France will just toe the line and join. Unlike Greece and Cyprus who were forced to join the club, the corrupt Italian and French leaderships are either too scared to go against the grain after Athens has just had an example made of it, or they’re in on the scheme.

 

Italy’s finance minister has called for deeper eurozone integration in the aftermath of the Greek crisis, saying a move “straight towards political union” is the only way to ensure the survival of the common currency.

Pier Carlo Padoan’s comments reflect how the tortured and dramatic negotiations that led to this month’s deal on a third bailout of Greece have triggered a round of soul-searching about the future of monetary union across European capitals.

“The exit and therefore the end of irreversibility is now an option on the table. Let’s not fool ourselves,” he said in an interview in his central Rome office. “If we want to take that risk away, then we have to have a different euro — a stronger euro.”

Italy just fell back into recession for the third time since 2008

ROME — Italy slipped into recession for the third time since 2008 in the second quarter, underlining the chronic weakness of the eurozone’s third-largest economy and pressuring the government to complete promised reforms.

Figures on Wednesday from statistics agency ISTAT showed gross domestic product unexpectedly declined by 0.2% in April-June from the previous three months. A Reuters poll of economists had forecast growth of 0.2%.

The economy also shrank by 0.1% in January-March, meaning it has returned to recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction.

Italian stocks fell after the data and the risk premium between Italy’s 10-year bonds and those of Germany widened.