European Commission Vice
President for the Euro and Social Dialogue Valdis Dombrovskis
said on Wednesday that the EC "favorably welcomes the accord
reached by Vestager and Padoan", referring to a mechanism to
manage over 200 billion euros in bad loans that are weighing on
the balance sheets of Italian banks, agreed upon late Tuesday
evening between Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan and
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
"It's an important step that, together with other reforms,
will improve the capacity of banks to take back loans and will
improve economic growth," Dombrovskis said, adding that
"guarantees must be priced at market conditions" in order to
avoid State aid.
Dombrovskis said "it's too early to understand the budget
implications" of the new guarantee mechanism, but that "press
articles today talking about a very dramatic impact are highly
exaggerated".
Vincenzo Boccia, president of the credit and finance
technical committee of employers group Confindustria, said the
group took news of the accord "positively".
"To understand, however, if it actually represents a step
forward and if it is able to have a concrete impact, there will
have to be a verification of whether the introduced rules,
particularly with reference to the cost of the guarantee, will
make the mechanism advantageous for banks and potential
investors," Boccia said during a joint hearing before the
finance and industry committees of the Lower House.
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