• ECB, go-ahead from the European Parliament to Lagarde President

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25 September 2019Italy applies to the Executive Director of the Bank of Italy, Fabio Panetta, to the Executive Committee of the European Central Bank, in place of the outgoing Benoit Coeuré, whose mandate expires on 31 December. An expected move: the letter with the curriculum of the economist, for 34 years at Palazzo Koch, started from the Ministry of Economy addressed to the president of the Eurogroup, Mario Centeno, will be addressed in the Eurogroup on 9 October and formalized at the Ecofin del 10 His, Centeno has made it known, is the only name in the field: after the recommendation of the Ministers of Economy, a hearing will follow in the European Parliament, with the appointment to the EU Council in December.

"Great satisfaction for the candidacy of Dr. Panetta: Italy presents a profile of great professional standing, competent, reliable, well accredited at European level", commented Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in the evening, adding: "Also within the ECB the Dr. Panetta will demonstrate his value and his professional competence by helping to meet the challenges of the common monetary policy "

The executive committee, the institution's decision-making body, is made up of the president of the ECB, the vice-president and four members appointed by the European Council by qualified majority. The custom has it that the four major euro economies are represented. From the first of November, in place of the Italian Mario Draghi, the president in French pectore Christine Lagarde should arrive. And so the position of Coeuré could be, to respect the balance between the various countries, filled by Panetta, while Germany can count on Sabine Lautenschlager and Spain on Luis de Guindos. The appointment of the Italian, considered a 'dove' among European economists with positions often in favor of Italian institutions on the issue of non-performing loans for supervisory purposes, has a significant weight in the ECB post Draghi.

Ciociaro, sixty years old, Panetta is general manager of Bankitalia and president of the Institute for insurance supervision since last May 10, taking over from Salvatore Rossi, who had communicated, shortly before, his unwillingness to remain in via Nazionale. The economist, a graduate of the Luiss University of Rome with a master's and doctorate degree in London, has been to Bankitalia since 1985 where he was initially assigned to the Economic Studies and Monetary Policy Department. And he can also count on a long experience of the European system, since he was Accompanying Person at the meetings of the ECB Governing Council first with governor Antonio Fazio and, then, with Mario Draghi himself, from 2012 to September 2016 he was deputy to the Governor in the same Board, and was among the members of the Supervisory Board of the Single Supervisory Mechanism at the ECB from 2014 to July 2019.