(by Stefania Fumo).
The government of center-left
Premier Matteo Renzi on Wednesday survived two no-confidence
votes over alleged conflicts of interest in its handling of four
failed 'popolari' or cooperative banks that were rescued last
year.
The motions were filed by Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right
Forza Italia (FI) party jointly with the rightwing,
anti-immigrant Northern League (LN), and by the anti-euro,
anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S).
In a speech prior to the vote, Renzi said he was "proud" of
last year's reform of the cooperative lenders, which should have
been overhauled 25 years ago.
"If that had been done at the end of the 1990s...we would
have avoided...the last 15 years of connivance between the
credit system and politics," he said in reference to several
consecutive Berlusconi administrations.
He went on to say that FI was "split and ever fewer" in
number, and that the premise of its no-confidence motion over
his government's handling of Banca Etruria is "totally
disconnected from reality".
"The motion says our decree on the 'popolari' banks made
mandatory the transformation and the listing of Banca Etruria,"
he said.
"But of all the banks affected by the January decree, Banca
Etruria was the only one already listed".
Banca Etruria is being used to attack him, he said. "We are
totally used to it, and we are not afraid," he said.
He went on to tell FI Senators that the government's banks
decree saved thousands of jobs.
"There is no conflict of interest, but an attempt with that
decree to save one million current account holders and 7,000
employees," he said. "We would never have destroyed pieces of
the economy in the name of a political battle against government
- Italy comes before political quarrels".
An alleged conflict of interest for Reform Minister Maria
Elena Boschi over the rescue of Banca Etruria, where her father
was vice president, "does not exist", Renzi said.
"This government put Banca Etruria under a commissioner as
it did with other banks without having any concern for names and
surnames," he told the Senate. "For us there are no friends or
friends of friends".
"In this country, those who err must pay and it is not up
to you to decide who pays, it's up to the judges," he told
lawmakers.
He concluded by saying that "the centre-right left Italy in
a worse state than it found it. We will leave it better than how
we found it".
In related news, executive government sources said
Wednesday the government is at work on a banks package that will
include the cooperative banks reform plus measures to speed up
recovery of outstanding loans and their securitization, as per
an accord Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan hammered out in
Brussels on Tuesday.
The package will be ready for cabinet next week, the
sources said. Padoan said earlier the deal he negotiated with
the EU on a public guarantee for the securitization of bad loans
will have no impact on Italy's budget deficit or its public
debt.
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