Autostrade, Merkel to Conte: "Curious to know how the Council of Ministers will go"

2020-07-13T18:15:20.127Z

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at the end today of the joint press conference with the Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, has made it known that she is "very curious about how it will go" the Italian Council of Ministers of tomorrow morning which has on the agenda the the issue of revoking motorway concessions to Autostrade dell'Italia, a company in which there is also a significant German presence. During the press conference, Conte was asked several questions about the matter and, answering the last, he took up a metaphor several times used by Merkel in relation to the European negotiation on the Recovery Plan ("We have to build bridges"), saying: " We must pursue this negotiation of common interests, but we must not give up common values. We must focus on services rather than on the bridges of motorways that already exist. Without prejudice - and here we return to the Italian question of which I have been asked many times - that if there are bridges and these bridges collapse, we must be able to sanction those responsible for this collapse ". In closing the press conference, however, Merkel said: "I didn't want to use the term highways, so I used bridges and not highways", referring to the metaphor she herself introduced. "I am very curious - he added - to know how tomorrow's Council of Ministers will go". The German chancellor is more than curious, she is certainly interested in what will happen on the issue of Italian motorway concessions because Allianz, the main German banking and insurance group, holds 6.94 percent of Autostrade per l'Italia through its subsidiary Appia Investments. , for a value exceeding 800 million euros.