PRESS RELEASE

Tuscany Regional Council Sends Glass-Steagall Draft Bill to Parliament

July 1, 2014 (EIRNS)—The Tuscany Regional Council approved by overwhelming majority, today, the new Glass-Steagall draft bill submitted by Councilman Gabriele Chiurli. The text goes now to the Parliament for examination. EIR sources report that interest for the new text has already arisen and that some Deputies could adopt the text independently.

"The draft bill is simple," Chiurli explains on his website. "It is based on the assumption that banks chartered for managing family and company savings cannot invest that money in risk operations, jeopardizing the stability of the bank itself—look at the case of Monte dei Paschi di Siena." The draft bill modifies the Single Banking Act of 1993, establishing two sections in the national charter of financial institutions, and defining duties and bans according to the section.

"Between commercial banks and investment banks," Chiurli states, "there shall be no commercial or equity relationship. Also dual jobs in banks of different category are banned."

The bill provides a favorable tax regime for commercial banks and defines sanctions for violations of the law.

"For years now, the issue of banking separation after the model of Roosevelt’s 1933 Glass-Steagall Act...has been discussed. The Tuscany Region itself has approved a motion to that effect and there are at least eleven draft bills in the national parliament. But so far," Chiurli stresses "nobody [has] acted. This is not a mandate to the government; here the key principles are already established for a necessary and very urgent reform of the banking system."

Also today, Chiurli introduced a new motion, on the subject of the Eurasian Land-Bridge. It says, among other things, that "the idea of a ’bridge’ between Europe and Asia along the ancient Silk Road, with the opportune ’deviations’ dictated by modern needs, is an old one. This project was first launched by U.S. politician Lyndon LaRouche after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which he saw as offering the opportunity of starting an economic and social reconstruction from the Atlantic to the Urals and beyond, involving China, Southwest Asia, and India."