Friday, September 23, 2005

Italian Melodrama at the IMF

More on the crisis of the italian government, this time in english.

The international credibility of this government, if there was any left, is completely jettisoned. The president of the Italian central bank, Fazio, who was in the eye of the storm during the summer, is at this very moment in Washington for the yearly meeting of the IMF. Berlusconi has just declared that Fazio does not have the support of the government anymore. His legitimacy has been put in doubt.

As a consequence, Italy is now represented in Washington by a person who is in conflict with the government; moreover, he is also in an open conflict with Giulio Tremonti, the newly appointed minister of Economic Affairs, who had been dismissed in the past from Berlusconi's government precisely because of the pressure exercised by Fazio.

The two men, Fazio and Tremonti, are in Washington at the IMF to defend the interests of Italy. Could something similar happen anywhere else in the world?

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