Mattarella to Cossiga undermines the EU from Cernobbio: “Italy an honorable debtor, Europe unfinished”

Mattarella to Cossiga undermines the EU from Cernobbio

Sergio Mattarella chooses the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio to lash out at the European Union. A novelty: both because the head of state usually prefers to launch his warnings between the lines, never with explicit declarations; and because Mattarella has always had a dialoguing and never conflictual approach with the European institutions.

At least in these nine years of presidency of the Republic. Mattarella in the version of Francesco Cossiga, the “pickaxe” who from the Quirinale struck without brakes, this time changes the register and does not hesitate to pickaxe even France and Germany, which enjoy a lower interest rate to repay their debts.

The tenant of the Quirinale wanted to establish some fixed points in his speech: Europe is “unfinished”; Italy pays its debts because he is an “honorable” debtor.

Watch the speech of the Head of State here

Mattarella recalls the “recent lucid choices made by the von der Leyen commission following the pandemic”. These are ““significant choices of discernment” resulting in “courageous policies on debt with Next Generation EU”.

Embracing Mario Draghi’s appeal to member states to change gear to remain competitive with the US and China, Mattarella is convinced that “we must not be afraid of reforms, of looking forward, of imagining a Europe increasingly perfected in its architecture and increasingly inclusive of those peoples, such as those of the Western Balkans, who have long aspired to participate in this adventure.”

“The history – continues Mattarella – of European integration, starting from the post-war period, from the community for coal and steel, with the vitality of the cultural, social, economic forces of the different countries, is a testimony to how a framework of freedom, social justice, aspiration to peace, expresses values ​​destined to prevail over the disvalues ​​of selfishness, opposition, racism, violence, hatred, war”. “With firmness, with determination, we continue on this path”, he concludes.

On the debt the head of state recalls that cutting it down is an “unavoidable necessity” and recalls that “on the debt front, Italy has paid more interest than France and Germany together, and yet it is a reliable payer” and explaining that the trend in interest rates “is a questionable thermometer”. “There is still a long way to go – he underlines – to give rationality to a market of government bonds that also takes into account the situation of the wealth of families”. “A European dimension – he continues – could build truth. Not an invitation to neglect the debt, which must be reduced, but an invitation to complete the European financial edifice”.

“Only with a reform of the European financial system could provide the truth about the reliability of the public accounts of the member countries”. Mattarella raises a shield on the economic solidity of our country. “Recent studies have highlighted how in 2023 Italy will face a debt of 2,863 billion euros and an amount of debt of France and Germany which added together are worth almost doubleour country paid slightly less interest than the other two countries. The reason, as is known, is the different interest rate” explains the head of state to the expert audience of the Ambrosetti Forum.

“And yet Italy is an honorable debtor” assures the President of the Republic – with a thirty-year history of annual primary government surpluses and a public debt that has grown largely since 1992 due in large part to interest”. For Mattarella “it is clear that a long way to go is to give rationality to a government bond market that neglects issues such as the ratio of public debt to net financial wealth of families”.

Hence the doubt, which is almost a thrust: “The thermometer of the markets’ perception of a country’s reliability can be questionable at best. A European dimension could restore truth. “Be careful – the President of the Republic clarifies – mine is not an invitation to neglect the debt, I am fully aware of the unavoidable need to reduce it, it is an invitation to proceed on a path that precisely assumes the fundamentals of the economy as a criterion and at the same time to complete the European financial building in a more reassuring way for everyone, starting it promptly”.

“The criticisms aimed at the European project see it, at times, as a mere consolatory utopia, the fruit of the suffering of the Second World War, or at times they define it as a functional expression of a further step in the development model typical of international capitalist globalization”, says Mattarella again.

“The legacy of the steps that have been taken – he continues – can be summarized – if we look at the contemporary debate in some European countries – between considering membership in the Union as a constraint, sometimes suffocating, for those who have joined, or as an opportunity, perhaps the only one for our continent, placed in a world – the BRICS teach us – increasingly made up of giants. Critics often omit two aspects: first of all, the European Union is the first exercise of this nature characterized by the direct participation of the people in decisions; secondly, the choices that, sometimes, they are the subject of controversy at a local level – disconcerting when they derive from protagonists who have taken part in these steps – they are not the result of regulations imposed by obscure powers, but are agreed upon at a community level between national governments, the Commission, the European Parliament, with participatory and transparent procedures”.