Veltroni says PD Bank of Italy motion unjustifiable

(ANSA) - Rome, October 18 - Walter Veltroni, the former head of the Democratic Party (PD), on Wednesday blasted a motion by the centre-left group against Governor Ignazio Visco as "incomprehensible and unjustifiable". On Tuesday a PD motion debated in the Lower House came out against Visco over his handling of Italy's recent banking crisis, saying a "new phase was needed".
    It said the crisis "could have been mitigated with more incisive and rapid prevention and management activity" in a move that many saw as an attack on the independence of the central bank. "The Bank of Italy has always been an asset of independence and autonomy for the whole country," Veltroni, who is also a former mayor of Rome, said when asked about the motion by ANSA.
    "That's why the PD parliamentary motion seems incomprehensible and unjustifiable to me".
    President Sergio Mattarella on Monday night called for "everyone" to safeguard the bank's autonomy and independence.
    Visco is coming to the end of his first term at the helm of the Bank of Italy and had been expected to get the nod for a second.
    PD leader Matteo Renzi stood by the motion, saying there has been a "clear lack of effective oversight" at the bank. "If someone wants to say that nothing has happened in the banking sector over the last few years, we are not among them, because everything possible has happened," he said. "Our motion yesterday powerfully explains that there is a need to turn a new leaf. "Whoever is the governor, and the decisions made by the government and the relative authorities, will have the full institutional respect of the PD. "But yesterday the PD voted on the basis of government indications". PD Lower House whip Ettore Rosato said that the motion was not a demand for Visco's head. "We don't want anyone's head," Rosato said. "We are the only ones who defended the right of the premier to identify the next governor. "But we could not fail to make a judgement and we have said on many occasions, not just yesterday, that the control system has not always worked in the best way and many savers have perceived this too".