Washington – The Draghi government allocates another 200 million euros in aid to Kiev. The announcement of the Minister of Economy Daniele Franco comes on the sidelines of the proceedings of the International Monetary Fund dominated by the invasion by Russia and its economic consequences.
“All the members of the G7 and the EU, including us, strongly condemned the conflict” during the IMF meetings and the various forums that followed, including the G20, Franco said in the press conference held. together with the governor of the Bank of Italy Ignazio Visco.
“I don’t think there is a limit that we must set ourselves to support Ukraine. The commitment is to continue to support the government of Ukraine”, adds the minister, observing that the question that will arise once the war is over is that of reconstruction of the country. “Someone in the meetings talked about a Marshall plan for Ukraine,” Franco said. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen limited herself to saying that the costs of reconstruction will be “enormous” and to expect Russia to help meet them. However, Yellen did not go too far in supporting the idea of using frozen Russian assets to help rebuild. In describing the dense two days of work, the minister and the governor also focused on Italy which – explained Franco – continues to grow, albeit more slowly. The minister said he was “happy” to have “reduced the debt to GDP ratio by four and a half points last year. There was a fear that the debt would go to 160% of GDP,” instead it approached 150%. We must continue on this path compatibly with the situation bearing in mind that interest rates will rise “, that” we must have higher growth rates than those of the last 25 years “and that the” primary balance must gradually improve “.
“It is unthinkable to accumulate tens of percentage points of GDP of public debt as we did during the pandemic,” he added. Visco echoed him by observing how the “strong support received from the EU must absolutely be used to make our economy grow more and raise potential capacity”. The governor then recalled that Italy “had great support also from monetary policy. From nothing a program was created that was able to acquire public securities”.
Finally, Franco and Visco observe how the dear energy triggered by the war it can be seen as a push to accelerate renewables so as to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. “Many countries like ours – said Franco – are running towards renewable energies”.
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