PRESS RELEASE
Italy: Prominent Call To Terminate the Euro
Dec. 27, 2016 (EIRNS)—It is not just radicals and populists who call for the end of the euro in Italy. Paolo Savona and Giorgio La Malfa, two former government ministers and establishment figures, wrote an op-ed in Corriere della Sera demanding that Germany leave the euro or, in alternative, that the euro be converted into a unit of account and the European Central Bank and the European Investment Bank become what the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were supposed to be, according to the Bretton Woods agreements.
Savona and La Malfa answer an earlier interview with Clemens Fuest (Dec. 15), head of the Munich-based IFO Institute, who had stated among other things that, "If the euro is an obstacle to growth in Italy, then Italy should leave the euro."
Along with an inevitable German-bashing, Savona and La Malfa propose the following:
"The Italian government should demand, with the full discretion of the case, a clarification from Germany and ask that Germany take the initiative of re-thinking the single currency. This can take two ways: the first one is that Germany leave the euro, reintroducing the d-mark and letting it float upwards....
"The other one is to replace the current mechanism of the single currency with a mechanism of fixed but adjustable exchanges with a downsized European Central Bank and the European Investment Bank assuming the features of the two Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and the World Bank; with the euro as a reference currency for national currency (as the Special Drawing Rights were supposed to become) and the EIB working to improve convergence among European countries."
If both options are rejected, then member countries should carry out "fully independent monetary and fiscal policies, wait and see."
In an earlier exchange with EIR, Professor Savona had very favorably commented on LaRouche’s proposal for a return of Herrhausen’s policies for Deutsche Bank.
