TIMES 19-DIC-2019 Pagina 2 Foglio 1 Governing council Bank ofItaly chief urges transparency at ECB on policy votes

MARTIN ARNOLD AND MILES JOHNSON this could expose members of the gov­ ROME erning council to unwelcome pressures The European should in their home nations. find a better way to handle dissent in its Mr Visco dismissed these fears even top ranks, including by holding votes though he and the institution he leads on monetary policy more regularly and have been the subject of regular attacks publishing the results, according to the by populist politicians in . head of Italy's central bank. He said: "I think we should aim for transparency as much as possible and if Ignazio Visco told the Financial Times that means making clear the dissent that the ECB's upcoming strategic or different positions of the members, review needed to come up with a plan to personally I don't have much to say avoid the kind of internecine feud that against it. We had a discussion on this in Ignazio Visco admits that more marred the end of 's time the past." openness may add lo uncertainly as its president. The main downside of such a move, In September the h eads of the he said, was that disagreements would German, French, Dutch and Austrian be more likely in the ECB's 25-person central banks - representing more than governing council because it is more half of the eurozone by population and than double the size of its equivalents at economic output - all publicly criti­ the US Fed or the Bank of England. cised the ECB's newly launched mone­ "This may add to the noise and this tary easing package. may add to uncertainty," he said. "We As well as cutting its deposit rate to have to be very careful about this." minus 0.5 per cent, the central bank Mr Visco has over the past year and a restarted its €2.6tn hond purchase half had to hold his nerve as the Bank of progran1me. Italy's independence from political , who took over interference was threatened by attacks from Mr Draghi at the start of Novem - from lawmakers from Matteo Salvini's ber, has pledged to rebuild consensus on anti-immigration League party, and the the ECB's governing council. anti-establishment Five Star Move­ "In this strategic review we also have ment, which together ruled the country to decide how we should try to accept in coalition until this summer. dissent," said Mr Visco, who replaced But in spite of the two parties' charged Mr Draghi as head of the Italian central rhetoric, the Bank ofltaly has managed bank in 2011. "We have to learn how to to remain above the fray of the country's manifest it." domestic politics. The ECB governing council includes Earlier this year when still in govern­ the 19 central bank heads from each ment, Mr Salvini said the leadership of eurozone country and six executive the should be "reduced to board members, including Ms Lagarde. zero" for its failure to protect small But it rarely votes on monetary policy savers who lost money in the country's and the public minutes of its meetings banking crisis. do not reveal the positions taken by Lawmakers from the League later individual members; during Mr floated the possibility of seizing control Draghi's time as president, the council of the Bank of Italy's gold reserves to generally reached its decisions by ensure they were recognised as the consensus. sovereign property of the Italian state. Some of the council's members Mr Visco said these calls were have suggested holding regular votes on "wrong in fact and wrong in law", monetary policy - like the US Federal pointing out that last year the central Reserve and Bank of England - and bank had paid out about €7bn in publishing the results. But others fear profits and taxes to the Italian govern­ ment.

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