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Matteo Salvini even sent a letter to the Corriere della Sera asking the government not to take the 37 billion euros that Italy could instead use for healthcare costs related to the covid emergency. The League senator in his Eurosceptic battle this time is wrong, and great, for at least three reasons. The doubt is that you err by knowing that you are wandering. If not, here we explain why that money could be very useful to the cause of our country.
1) The first justification given by Salvini concerns the fact that it would be better to borrow money on the markets, intensifying the issuance of government bonds, given that recently the BTP Italia in a single auction closed with 22.3 billion euros . It is a pity, however, that the League player omits a “small” detail: the interest expense. Even those unfamiliar with the economy know well that when evaluating a loan, the main item you look at is the interest rate. Those who want to take out a mortgage, for example, first of all make a comparison between the cheapest rates they find on the market. Well, a state does the same thing. And in this case there is no match: the 10-year rates that Italy is forced to offer to those who buy government bonds are just under 2% while the Mes would cost only 0.08%. Eugenio Gaiotti, head of the Economics and Statistics Department of the Bank of Italy, therefore a third and reliable source, in a recent parliamentary hearing quantified the average savings for Italy in 500 million a year if he uses the Mes instead of new issues by Btp. In ten years they make 5 billion. Billions that can be used in the future to make additional social spending – for school or public works – instead of being given away to investors.
2) The second justification of the League concerns the issue of the tied loan: according to Salvini, the funds of the save-states can be used only for expenses strictly connected to the health emergency and therefore not to strengthen the health system as a whole. Again, however, it is patently inaccurate. Because the member states of the European Union have agreed that the Mes will go to cover health interventions for “direct and indirect expenses”. So the government will not find itself with tied hands, only being able to modernize hospitals and strengthen the local health authorities – and that would already be a lot. In fact, little is needed to demonstrate that even “wider” measures in favor of our health can be linked to post-Covid: investments in research, strengthening of services for the elderly, increase in health personnel, and so on. According to Salvini it would not be possible to prove it, in reality it seems evident that each of these items can safely be included in the list of things to be financed to respond to the emergency we are experiencing.
3) Third and final point on which Salvini is wrong is the hardest commonplace to die. And that is the fact that sooner or later the Troika will arrive in Italy to ask us for draconian measures to repay the loans. Here the Northern League is overcome, bringing into play possible assets, beatings to pensions and tightening of VAT. What is the reality of the facts instead? The Eurogroup, which brings together the Mes shareholder states, has clarified that Pandemic Crisis Support is available to everyone and does not provide for “enhanced surveillance” of the kind seen for the rescue of Greece, with representatives of the EU Commission, ECB , IMF. In short, there are no preliminary economic or budgetary reforms that are required but only a control – sacrosanct – that European money is used for health as a whole. Point. With all due respect to Salvini.
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