The Government of Italy has approved an emergency decree tonight to inject 900 million euros into the Popolare di Bari Bank , at risk of bankruptcy. The Executive's decision comes two days after the Bank of Italy intervened the entity and appointed two extraordinary administrators to manage it temporarily, after verifying that it accumulated millionaire losses due to unpaid loans.

The alarm signal was launched by the financial institution itself, which last week recognized that it needed 1,000 million euros of liquidity to avoid bankruptcy. Shortly after, the mayor of Bari, in the south of the country, called for urgent government intervention to save the savings of 70,000 shareholders and prevent the collapse of the city's economy. On Friday the bank was intervened by the Italian supervisor and the Government met in an urgent Council of Ministers but was not able to approve concrete measures due to the refusal of several members of the Executive.

The Government's plan is to facilitate the capital increase of the MedioCredito Centrale bank, which is publicly owned by being controlled by the Ministry of Economy through the investment agency Invitalia , so that it can participate together with the Interbank Deposit Guarantee Fund and other investors in the rescue of the bank. "We will have a kind of investment bank from the south with public participation," said Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte .

Last Saturday, Conte publicly apologized after only a few hours before, from Brussels, he assured that it would not be necessary to intervene in any bank despite the fact that he was already aware of the critical situation that the entity was going through. "I could not anticipate to the cameras what was happening. I apologize to the Italians, for the first time I was omitting something but could not talk to open markets," the president justified himself.

The decision has unleashed a battle inside the Executive, supported mainly by three different parties: PD, Five Star Movement and Viva de Matteo Renzi. The former Italian Prime Minister took advantage of the rescue of Banca Popolare di Bari to defend the rescue of several financial entities during his administration, between 2014 and 2016.

However, the current Foreign Minister and main coalition shareholder, Luigi Di Maio , traditionally very critical of public bailouts to the bank, rejected the comparison. "Etruria Bank made the savers lose money and the Venetian banks were cleaned with the money of the Italians and sold for one euro," also launched the leader of the Five Star Movement.

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