...correva il 21 aprile 2001 quando il giornale dell'establishment finanziario scaricava Berlusconi con questa famosa copertina: "Perchè Berlusconi è inadatto a governare l'Italia". Come sia finira è noto. Berlusconi non òa aveva preso bene, e aveva querelato il Financial Times. Setta anni dopo, il FT era stato assolto, e Berlusconi condannato al pagamento di tutte le spese processuali.
...correva il 20 Gennaio 2013... La storia si ripete. Il FT esce con un editoriale nel quale spiega perchè Monti non sia l'uomo giusto per governare l'Italia. E, massimo del disdoro, toglie a Monti ogni merito per la discesa dello spread (con tanti saluti alla "quota Monti, o "quota 287), girando il merito stesso all'altro Mario. Mario Draghi, Governatore della BCE
L'articolo in alto può essere aperto e letto, quello del Financial Times no, perchè l'accesso ad alcuni articoli è riservato agli abbonati e agli utenti registrati. Ma l'argomento è troppo importante per l'Italia, per restare confinato ai lettori del FT. Quindi riportiamo una sintesi del contenuto in italiano (dal Fatto), e poi pubblichiamo un ampio estratto dell'articolo originale in inglese, perchè rimanga agli atti, nella memoria del web.
Financial Times: “Monti non è l’uomo giusto per guidare l’Italia” - Il premier uscente ha "salvato il paese dal baratro e da Berlusconi", ma il suo governo ha attuato riforme modeste e ha finito per aumentare le tasse. E il calo dello spread" è merito di Draghi". Bersani si è mostrato esitante, ma potrebbe avere più chance rispetto al Professore (Fonte: Il Fatto Quotidiano)
”Mario Monti non è l’uomo giusto per guidare l’Italia”. Titola così un editoriale di Wolfgang Munchau pubblicato sul Financial Times online, secondo cui il suo esecutivo “ha provato a introdurre riforme strutturali modeste”, annacquate fino alla “irrilevanza macroeconomica”. Il Professore “ha promesso riforme” finendo per “aumentare le tasse” e anche sul calo dello spread molti italiani “sanno che è legato a un altro Mario, a Draghi”. In più, nonostante abbia salvato l’Italia dal “baratro e da Silvio Berlusconi“, è altrettanto vero che ”iniziato come tecnico” per poi emergere “come un duro politico”.
Munchau confronta il premier con gli avversari politici e ritiene che Pier Luigi Bersani, pur avendo sostenuto le politiche di austerità, adesso tenta di prenderne le distanze. Il leader del Pd si è mostrato “esitante” rispetto alle riforme strutturali, anche se potrebbe avere lievemente più chance rispetto a Monti nel confronto con Angela Merkel grazie alla sua possibilità di collaborazione col presidente francese François Hollande. Monti invece – prosegue il giornale – da premier non ha detto alla cancelliera tedesca “che l’impegno per la moneta unica sarebbe dovuto dipendere dall’unione bancaria”, dagli eurobond e da “politiche economiche più espansive da parte di Berlino”.
Per quanto riguarda invece Berlusconi, l’Ft nota che l’alleanza con la Lega, seppur indietro nei sondaggi, sta guadagnando consensi e ritiene che “fino ad ora la campagna dell’ex primo ministro sia stata “positiva“. Il Cavaliere ha infatti lanciato un messaggio anti-austerità a cui è sensibile l’elettorato deluso e ha “continuato a criticare la Germania per la sua riluttanza ad accettare gli eurobond e a permettere che la Bce acquistasse bond italiani incondizionatamente”. Munchau si augura così che la storia accordi all’attuale presidente del Consiglio “un ruolo simile a quello giocato da Henrich Bruning, il cancelliere tedesco tra il 1930-1932. Anche lui è stato parte di un consenso prevalente sul fatto che non ci fosse alternativa all’austerity” e conclude affermando che “l’Italia ha ancora poche scelte. Ma le deve fare”.
E quello che segue è il testo dell'articolo originale del FT
Monti is
not the right man to lead Italy. Most
Italians know they owe the fall in bond yields to Draghi (Wolfgang Munchau - FT)
The financial crisis has faded in Italy but the economic crisis has been growing. There has hardly been a day without news of the credit crunch worsening, and a fall in employment, consumption, production and business confidence. Once again, a European government has misjudged the predictable impact of austerity. Having shown almost no growth for a decade, the Italian economy is lingering in a long and deep recession.
Like the other countries on the eurozone’s southern rim, Italy faces three options. The first is to stay in the euro and take on alone the burden of full adjustment. By this I mean both economic adjustment, in terms of unit labour costs and inflation; and fiscal adjustment. The second is to stay in the eurozone, contingent on shared adjustment between creditor and debtor nations. The third is to leave the euro. Successive Italian governments have tried a fourth option – stay in the euro, focus on short-term fiscal adjustment only and wait.
Since we know from economic history how such episodes end, option four will ultimately lead us back to options one, two or three. My favourite would have been the second: make euro membership conditional on symmetrical adjustment. But Mario Monti, Italy’s prime minister, did not stand up to Angela Merkel. He did not tell the German chancellor that his country’s continued engagement with the single currency would have to depend on a proper banking union with full resolution and deposit insurance capacity; a eurozone bond; and more expansionist economic policies by Berlin. In his interview with the Financial Times last week, Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister, demanded symmetrical adjustment – again, rather late, since Germany is already planning an austerity budget for 2014. In view of all political decisions already taken, the option of symmetrical adjustment is slowly receding.
So where does this leave Italy ahead of next month’s elections? As prime minister, Mr Monti promised reform and ended up raising taxes. His government tried to introduce modest structural reforms but they were watered down to macroeconomic insignificance. Having started as a leader of a technical government, he has emerged as a tough, political operator. His narrative has been that he saved Italy from the brink, or rather from Silvio Berlusconi, his predecessor. A fall in bond yields has played into this narrative, but most Italians know they owe this to another Mario – Draghi, president of the European Central Bank.
On the left, Pier Luigi Bersani, general secretary of the Partito Democratico, has supported austerity but has recently been trying to distance himself from those policies. He has also been more hesitant on structural reforms. His main campaign themes are a wealth tax, the fight against tax evasion, money laundering and gay rights. He says he wants Italy to stay in the eurozone. There is a marginal chance he will be more successful in standing up to Ms Merkel because he is in a better position to team up with François Hollande, the French president and a fellow Socialist.
On the right, the alliance of Mr Berlusconi and the Northern League has been behind in the polls but is making advances. So far, the former prime minister has had a good campaign. He has delivered an anti-austerity message that has struck a chord with a disillusioned electorate. He also keeps criticising Germany for its reluctance to accept a eurozone bond and to allow the ECB to buy Italian bonds unconditionally.
You could interpret this as an option-two stance: insist on symmetrical adjustment or get out. We know Mr Berlusconi only too well, however. He was a prime minister for long enough to have shaped such a debate much earlier. To become credible, he must produce a clear strategy that maps out the choices in detail. All we have now are television soundbites.Judging from the latest opinion polls, the most likely election result is gridlock, perhaps in the form of a Bersani-Monti coalition of the centre-left, possibly with a centre-right majority in the Italian senate, where different voting rules apply. This would leave everyone, more or less, in charge. Nobody would have the power to implement a policy. Everybody would have the right to veto one.
If that were the case, Italy would continue to muddle through, pretending it had opted to remain in the euro but without creating the conditions to make membership sustainable. In the meantime, I would expect an anti-euro political consensus to emerge that would probably either win an outright majority in subsequent elections or trigger a political crisis with ultimately the same effect.As for Mr Monti, my best guess is that history will accord him a role similar to that played by Heinrich Brüning, Germany’s chancellor from 1930 to 1932. He, too, was part of a prevailing establishment consensus that there was no alternative to austerity.
Italy still has a few choices open. But it has to make them.
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