Two months after the general elections, Italy continues to be in a political deadlock. In fact,president Mattarella considers new elections in July a possibility if a “truce government” has no majority in Parliament. As negotiations continue, possibly preceded by a transition government, Italian authorities are tasked with passing the budget in the fall and approving a new electoral law that would deliver a clearer winner at the next election.
The “eternal return” to a proposal to leave the euro seems to be an irresistable force for some people. A current case in point is Italy, but there are a couple of interesting precedents in the files, like Greece and Ireland.
If I haven’t got the wrong end of the stick, Italy plans is to create a parallel currency to the euro, guaranteed by the Italian government, but which I don’t know who will control. A Bank of Italy? The government would issue these BOT, endorse them with the BI, which would give it the money to be shared out amongst the unpaid creditors. It seems a lot like Helicopter Money.
Europe, where everyone is against everbody else. The victory in Italy of the populist Five Star Movement and Lega has shattered into a million pieces the slight possibilities of having a more united Europe, or a more federal one, or whatever you want to call it.
Sunday’s Italian election have left behind a complex scenario and a lot of attention will be on the negotiations to form a government. In fact, Matteo Renzi has been the first domino to fall as he has decided to resign after his party’s negative results. But in Germany a political future is shaping up, after the Socialdemocrat Party gave the green light to the agreement with the conservatives of Christian Democrat leader Angela Merkel.
Francesco Saraceno | The crisis is supposedly over, as the European economy started growing again. But this matters little to those who, as soon as things got slightly better, turned to their old obsession: Debt. Bear in mind, not private debt, that seems to have disappeared from the radars. No, what seems to keep policy makers and pundits awake at night is ugly public debt, the source of all troubles (past, present and future).
Ebro Foods has announced the acquisition of 70% of Italian fresh pasta maker Bertagni (the current shareholders and management team will maintain the remaining 30%) for 130 million euros.
Italy will choose their next government in 2018. Italy is subject to the same four issues present in many Eurozone member states, but with greater intensity: low growth (with productivity gains gone AWOL before the Global Financial Crisis), high public debt, a weak banking sector and political fragility. Improvements on all four fronts have characterized 2017.
Iberdrola is preparing itself to enter the Italian electricity trading market before current year ends, in which the company will offer its own tariffs in the distribution segment. They will compete with operators such as Enel, Eni and Edison and expect to reach a market share of 5%-7% in next six years, namely a million of customers in 2020 and three millions in 2023. Iberdrola is not considering any acquisitions in order to carry out this strategic move.
Italian elections are likely to represent the next main European political risk. With anti-establishment sentiment running high and the euro increasingly seen as a major contributor to Italy’s structural problems, both themes will feature prominently in the campaign ahead of the next election.