Giorgetti and Salvini: no to the ratification of the Mes, the European bailout fund

The controversy over Italy's non-ratification of the Mes, the European bailout fund, continues. "I simply said that introducing the topic of the ratification of the ESM at this time," said Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, "seemed to me a bit let's say, vaguely to throw some salt on the wound and therefore improper. The minister thus responded on leaving the Ecofin Council to those who asked him whether he raised the issue yesterday at the MES board meeting that there is a political bias against the Italian government on the part of others in the EU.

'Parliament,' said Giorgetti, 'is not in a position to approve it and will not approve it'. And again: 'There is not much hope of ratifying it. Let's say in the short term it is not possible, in the long term it depends on whether it changes, whether it improves, whether it changes in nature as we have always asked'.

Yesterday, for the first time, the director of MES Pierre Gramegna made some reflections" on the instrument, said Giorgetti, "evidently also taking on board the criticisms that we have always made to try to change it and bring it towards a use like a European sovereign fund," he explained, "for example for defence, avoiding that individual nation states might have to go into debt or spend at the national level. The discussion has just been sketched out and among other things I have encountered a lot of resistance, especially from the Nordic countries'. If the Mes countries say first ratify and then change the instrument "there is no way out: it is clear that if they require ratification first, it becomes substantially unworkable," Giorgetti explained. If there were future change commitments, could Italy ratify? "Honestly the discussion yesterday does not seem to me that we are still very far from even the commitment phase in the sense that there is a very substantial front, the usual very substantial front that we already know about European rules, which is absolutely against changing the nature" of the MES. 'So totally this situation is destined in the short term not to change for sure'.

Shortly before Matteo Salvini had been even clearer: Italy will never ratify the MES, the Minister of Transport and Deputy Prime Minister said: 'The MES is of no use to Italy - it is another European folly'. Asked if it will be ratified, he replied: 'No, never, it's another European folly. Let them approve it if they want to because we don't need it'.