Who are the anti Mes leftist teachers
An appeal by intellectuals, jurists and university professors to prevent the Italian government from approving the reform of the Mes. What the text says and who are the signatories
"The Mes appears to be an institution in crisis and for the moment in search of a vocation". This was said by the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti, a member of the Brothers of Italy government who has always had a critical approach towards the Mes, ever since he was in opposition. But it's not just the government that has doubts about the MES. Even a large group of professors, jurists, intellectuals have signed an appeal from Micromega , an editorial reality that is undoubtedly distant from the ideas of the Premier League, which asks to abolish the MES.
WHAT IS THE MONTH
The Mes is an intergovernmental institution, established in 2012, to respond to the international financial crisis that has engulfed the economies of Greece, Cyprus, Ireland and Portugal. The Mes, even if it was implemented to prevent the debt crisis of the countries most in difficulty from putting the very existence of the European Union at risk, is not subject to the rules of Community law but to the rules of international law. It is based in Luxembourg and consists of a Board of Governors (i.e. the finance ministers of the euro area), a Board of Directors (whose members are chosen by the ministers) and a director general, in the person of Luxembourg's Pierre Gramegna .
ABOLITING MES IS THE ONLY SENSE REFORM
The appeal asks not to evaluate the reform proposal but to abolish the instrument . "The only sensible reform of the Mes would be its abolition, and the attribution of the 80.5 billion of capital paid by the Member States to a "Debt Agency" being set up as proposed by Massimo Amato, Francesco Saraceno and others", reads the Micromega site.
WHO PRESSURES ITALY TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE MONTH
Italy is the only European country that has not signed up to the reform of the European Stability Mechanism (MES) and for this reason it is undergoing considerable internal and external pressure. “ We hope that Italy will quickly ratify the reform of the Mes ”, said the president of the ECB Christine Lagarde just a few days ago. On the internal front, however, the requests to proceed with the approval of the reform of the Mes come from one part of the majority, that of Forza Italia, but above all from the opposition of Italia Viva . The main argument is that the latter is necessary for the completion of the banking union . In fact, one of its new tasks provides that it must intervene if the common deposit protection fund is not sufficient to cover the costs of a possible emergency.
WHY THE BANKING UNION HAS NOT BEEN COMPLETED YET
According to the signatories of Micromega's appeal, one of the reasons, perhaps the main one, why the banking union has not yet been completed, lies in the fact that a group of countries believe that first we must provide for a reduction of risks . In fact, many banks hold numerous sovereign bonds of high-debt countries. The request is that they substantially reduce this part of the securities portfolio. Italy and its banks is the country to which this request is addressed. Only once it has been satisfied is there a willingness to assume risk sharing . So the obstacle is not the establishment of a technical and regulatory body, functions that the Mes should perform. “It is hard to see why the backstop task for the banking union should be entrusted to a body outside the Community institutions, under Luxembourg law , which by statute is required to pursue only the interests of creditors and therefore not to take into consideration – or in any case to maintain in the alternative – general political interests”, reads the appeal.
THE FEAR OF A NEW GREECE
The greatest fear of the signatories is that what happened in Greece could be repeated in another European country (Italy?), whose accounts have been rearranged with very high social costs. “ That affair gave the Mes a profoundly negative connotation , so much so that even the loans offered during the pandemic were not requested by any country, despite the declaration – not assisted, however, by formal documents – that the only conditionality would be the use of those funds for health purposes”.
THE RISK THAT THE REFORM OF THE MONTH IS ALREADY BORN OLD
Furthermore, the signatories underline that “the rules of the Stability Pact are included in the text of the reform, those that are about to be completely changed – they write -. So the reform should be immediately reformed to accommodate those changes ”.
WHO ARE THE PROFESSORS WHO SIGNED MICROMEGA'S APPEAL AGAINST THE MONTH
To sign Micromega's appeal are intellectuals very distant from the Government. There is the economist prof. Andrea Fumagalli , from the University of Pavia, who recently spoke out in favor of the minimum wage and the maintenance of the basic income, prof. emeritus Nicola Acocella of the University of Rome "La Sapienza", who defended the president of INPS Tridico, prof. Lucio Baccaro, Max Planck Institute, Cologne, who at the outset of the pandemic signed an appeal asking the EU to launch expansionary economic policies. In short, intellectuals who have little in common with the government forces that criticize the Mes.
Here are all the signatories:
Nicola Acocella, University of Rome La Sapienza
Lucio Baccaro, Max Planck Institute, Cologne
Annaflavia Bianchi, economist
Maria Luisa Bianco, University of Eastern Piedmont
Silvia Borelli, University of Ferrara
Paolo Borioni, University of Rome La Sapienza
Rorita Canale, University of Naples Parthenope
Antonio Cantaro, University of Urbino Carlo Bo
Sergio Cesaratto, University of Siena
Carlo Clericetti, journalist
Marco Dani, University of Trento
Massimo D'Antoni, University of Siena
Giovanni Dosi, Sant'Anna High School of Pisa
Claudio De Fiores, Vanvitelli University
Andrea Fumagalli, University of Pavia
Stefano Giubboni, University of Perugia
Lucio Gobbi, University of Trento
Dario Guarascio, University of Rome La Sapienza
Andrea Guazzarotti, University of Ferrara
Riccardo Leoni, University of Bergamo
Federico Losurdo, University of Urbino Carlo Bo
Stefano Lucarelli, University of Bergamo
Ugo Marani, University of Naples l'Orientale
Agustín José Menéndez, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Guido Ortona, University of Eastern Piedmont
Ugo Pagano, University of Siena
Gabriele Pastrello, University of Trieste
Paolo Piacentini, University of Rome La Sapienza
Paolo Pini, University of Ferrara
Riccardo Realfonzo, University of Sannio
Roberto Romano, economist
Fiammetta Salmoni, Guglielmo Marconi University
Roberto Schiattarella, University of Camerino
Alessandro Somma, University of Rome La Sapienza
Antonella Stirati, Roma Tre University
Andrea Ventura, University of Florence
Gennaro Zezza, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/chi-sono-i-prof-di-sinistra-anti-mes/ on Sun, 25 Dec 2022 07:20:09 +0000.