Thursday

28th Mar 2024

Northern League launch campaign to revive lira

The Italian Northern League party launched a campaign to revive the lira at an 85,000-strong rally of its supporters on Sunday (19 June)

The party, which holds minister posts in Silvio Berlusoni's government, called for a revival of the lira as a "parallel currency" to the euro, which would remain the currency of the state budget, tourism and foreign trade.

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Under Italian law, a referendum must be held if half a million signatures are collected.

Many economists have branded the idea "bizarre", but not Stanford professor Ronald McKinnon.

Speaking at a European Central Bank conference in Frankfurt he said there is some credence to the view that maybe Italy should be split off and have its own currency. "Even if we know it would all go wrong", he said according to the Telegraph.

In June, Italy became the first country to face disciplinary action under the EU's adjusted stability pact because of a ballooning budget deficit.

Berlusconi attacks euro

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi called the euro a "rip-off" that "screwed everybody" in a vitriolic attack on opposition leader Romano Prodi.

'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told

Italian central banker Piero Cipollone in his first monetary policy speech since joining the ECB's board in November, said that the bank should be ready to "swiftly dial back our restrictive monetary policy stance."

Opinion

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

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