The European financial establishment has just declared war on Italy

This week in a CNBC interview Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the former Dutch minister of finance who served as the President of the Eurogroup, declared war on the Italian government. The European financial establishment is prepared to destroy the banking system and cause the Italian economy to implode. Like a Mafia boss, Dijsselbloem warned that Italy could run into trouble if it does not comply with Brussels’ directives. Of course, his statement was cloaked in diplomatic language:

“If the Italian crisis becomes a major crisis, it will mainly implode into the Italian economy … as opposed to spreading around Europe,” he said. “Because of the way that the Italian economy and the Italian banks are financed, it’s going to be an implosion rather than an explosion.”

For a man of this format it is unusual to publicly expose Italy as a state in a weak negotiating position or try to act as a scaremonger. We have never seen anything remotely like that, so we think that the utterance could only serve the purpose of giving the green light to the financial markets to orchestrate an attack on Italian bonds so as to drive Italian yield up.

“And there is gonna be a role for the markets, I mean if you look at what Italy needs in funding next year alone – we are talking of over 250 billion euros – refinancing part of the stock of their debt and also, of course, these new spending plans. So markets will really have to look at that very critically.”

Italy’s situation is ‘pretty worrisome’: Dijsselbloem from CNBC.

He reminded the Italian government that Italian banks are a sitting target for the European financial authorities. In order to destabilize a country’s economy, one must break its backbone i.e. banks.

“There will also have to be a role for the banking authority, banking supervisor to look what this does to the Italian banks. We have already seen their stock valuation going down” Mr Dijsselbloem said with a smile. Continue reading

How Merkel and Macron spent more time in the pub than listening to May’s Brexit overtures

If Theresa May wanted proof she is running out of friends in Europe, she need only have ventured to the Roy d’Espagne brasserie in Brussels late last night. For while the Prime Minister dined alone after another summit mauling, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and the rest of their European chums were drinking the night away and enjoying the city’s famous beers. Source The Telegraph