There is a word that comes back in the clash between Giorgia Meloni and Carlo Messina: 'respect'. What the number one of Intesa Sanpaolo demands after having "put his face" on last year's pact between banks and the government which he considers betrayed. And what the Prime Minister claims for the choices of a maneuver based on "justice".
"Help us help the country", urges the banker before the banking commission, branding the deferral of Superbonus credits as a "South American formula" - with the specter of debt restructuring and default - and denouncing a proposal "not consistent with the Constitution". "Let's try to give each other a hand", replies the prime minister from Dublin. Words with an opposing force, behind which the billions of the financial company and a mutual trust that has now ended in the red are agitated. Until an unprecedented duel which, it is said in banking circles, also has personal roots.
"The Prime Minister did a good job and I recognize that she has great abilities", concedes Messina, who arrived on crutches after an accident on the tennis court. He apologizes for his frankness: the pain, perhaps, leaves little room for diplomacy. "Last year I was the promoter of the agreement" on the contribution of the banks "after a conversation with Meloni", he recalls, claiming to have defended the three-year agreement before international investors, also convincing those who threatened liability actions.
"Today" those same investors "won't understand", he warns, worried about the risk of wasting a precious asset of trust in a country with high debt. A thrust that, as soon as she arrived at the European Political Community, Meloni did not let go. "I'm sorry that they are considered South American measures, but I think they are not", she replies, highlighting that she would have been "happier to be able to reach the same result with an agreement, as has happened in past years". Because, while many Italians face a difficult economic situation, there are realities that have prospered "also thanks to the government's measures".
However, Messina refuses to play the role of the ungrateful banker. "I criticize the concept of always moving towards the same sector", he specifies, pointing the finger at the search for consensus: the problems must be addressed "in the medium and long term and not for the following three months because in six months there are elections". The fears of Bank of Italy and the Parliamentary Budget Office also give weight to his criticisms. "The greater levy - states Via Nazionale - affects sectors that have solid income and capital conditions. However, this does not reduce the importance of a stable and predictable regulatory framework: frequent or unexpected changes in taxation increase uncertainty and influence the investment choices of operators".
In the evening Palazzo Chigi, after some discussions with the bank, it is said, tries to mend - at least publicly - a rift judged "inappropriate" by more than one voice: even in financial circles which refer to 'wrong' words from a diplomatic point of view by the CEO of Intesa. Meloni, it is specified, had understood the reporters' question on the "South American measures" as a criticism of the entire maneuver, not of the law on the Superbonus, for which moreover some changes are being worked on. A misunderstanding, at least formally: otherwise he would not have spoken of "justice" but of a "specific political choice".
The clarification saves the shape, but leaves older rust intact. First the tax on extra profits, with the government forced to review a levy of around one billion. Then the case of the unfaithful Intesa employee who had spied on thousands of bank accounts, including those of the prime minister and her sister Arianna. The takeover bid launched by Intesa for Mps didn't help either. Incidents that have left waste in a relationship complicated by that distrust towards banks which, as observed in financial circles, is in the prime minister's political DNA.
In the majority, the dispute is instead seen as further proof that Meloni "cannot be blackmailed". He also seems to have "freed the Fazzolari that is in all of us", jokes a true Melonian, recalling that combative streak towards strong powers which finds a natural interpreter in the undersecretary. Giancarlo Giorgetti, on the other hand, prefers accounting geography: "I accept the criticisms of a South American measure but I vindicate the Habsburg policy of these four years".
