Tria lukewarm on euro, says flat tax after VAT hike

(ANSA) - Rome, May 31 - Giovanni Tria, the touted new Italian economy minister, is lukewarm on the euro but is against leaving it, according to an interview he gave to financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore last year written with former Berlusconi finance minister Renato Brunetta, another economist.
    "Those who evoke leaving the euro without ifs and buts as a panacea for all out ills are nor right," said Tria, 70, dean of the economics faculty of Rome's Tor Vergata University.
    But those who say the euro is irreversible are not right either, he said.
    Tria said shared solutions have to be sought because leaving the euro on your own "means paying only costs without benefits".
    This position, analysts said, would make him more acceptable to President Sergio Mattarella than the Euroskeptic economist the presdient rejected as economy minister on Sunday, Paolo Savona.
    Tria is also in favour of a flat tax, one of the key policies of the possible new government, but only after raising VAT rates first.
    The Roman-born economist has said he is skeptical about the boost to the economy a flat tax theoretically makes, so alternative sources of revenue would be needed to make up for the shortfall. Tria has had posts in academe and the public and private sector since graduating in law from Rome's la Sapienza University in 1971, according to a long CV. Among other things, he has been head of the national school of administration, member of the Italian economics society, member of the American Economic Association, Italian government delegate on the Board of directors of the International Labour Office.