Zanni Tells LaRouchePAC, We Need Bank Separation against the Green Bubble and ESM

Dec. 19, 2019 (EIRNS)—In a 40-minute video interview to be posted on LaRouchePAC, Marco Zanni, the leader of the Identity and Democracy faction of the European Parliament and Italy’s Foreign Affairs spokesman for the Lega party, exposed the fraud of the EU’s European Stability Mechanism (ESM) bank bailout scheme and of the Green New Deal, and argued for bank separation (Glass-Steagall) instead.

Zanni warned that faced by stress throughout the financial system, “the EU and European Central Bank are refusing to assess properly or to consider actions to tackle the huge risks that are evident to everyone now.” The ESM “is a complicated, useless mechanism that is typical of EU decision-making processes. We have an instrument which is already in place and could guarantee financial stability to the financial system: It is the ECB. We don’t need the ESM as a safety net.”

Another problem is that none of the regulations put in place after the 2008 crisis

“address the problem. They are just trying to create buffers, capital buffers that are not enough to guarantee stability to the financial system. We are acting to set up mechanisms to absorb a financial crisis, but history shows that it is impossible to calculate beforehand the consequences of a financial crisis. Whatever capital buffers we impose on banks, that won’t be enough to face the next financial crisis.”

The right way is to act is to prevent the crisis.

“We have worked since 2014, I have worked in the European Parliament and in the European institutions to protect the healthy part of our banks and separate what we don’t need, what is speculative debt that is just feeding a big financial bubble in our system. History shows that in the end, this bubble will burst, and taxpayers will have to pay for the mistakes and speculations of bankers.”

The case of the Banca Popolare di Bari (BPB) crisis shows mistakes in supervision, but also “is an example of how managers bankrupt a financial institution because they chase after high returns, high-risk investments, in order to pay themselves bonuses. It shows that authorities must intervene with proper separation.”

Is Green finance a new bubble?

“Green is the color of money.... There is something behind it. This green schizophrenia is something we should assess better. It is not based on concrete data, it is not based on a pragmatic approach, and it is dangerous propaganda. Last week the EU Commission President [Ursula von der Leyen] presented her Green New Deal which is one of the pillars of her program for the next five years, and I was not surprised to see that this is just speculative finance hiding behind a sort of green wall.

“What will happen on this? Banks will speculate on this new instrument, will make profits, will feed the financial bubble and someone in the end will have to pay the bill for this speculation....

“What is in the end for the EU in this Green New Deal and the so-called Just Transition Fund that is supposed to be an €1 trillion fund to help banks to make profits, and government and the private sector to invest in so-called green projects? That, for me, is something similar to the ESM. When Germany was in trouble with banks greatly exposed to Greek debt, they decided to set up this bailout fund, which collected taxpayers’ money from all member states and bailed out German banks. And that will happen with this Just Transition Fund as well. Germany today needs to reconvert its industrial system. So, this JTF will again collect money from taxpayers around Europe to pay for Germany’s industrial conversion. That is what will happen, and that is something we want to block.

“We have the duty to bring the debate about climate change back to reality, because this is dangerous propaganda, dangerous schizophrenia that will hurt not just Europe but the entire world, as well as the progress of our continent and our country at a moment when we are experiencing a lack of growth.”