The European Commission’s decision on the infringement procedure for the use of the special powers of the golden power by Italy in the context of the Unicredit – Banco Bpm Ops is expected for tomorrow, Thursday 20 November.
Golden Power, does Brussels save Rome?
According to reports Milan Finance – underlining that the indiscretion has not been officially confirmed at the moment – Brussels could send a letter of formal notice as early as tomorrow, believing that the government has hindered the free movement of capital and interfered with the Commission and the ECB. UniCredit, in the end, withdrew from the operation also due to the conditions imposed by Rome, such as the rapid exit from Russia, continues MF.
What will Brussels do?
According to rumors collected, however, by Il Giornale d’ItaliaBrussels will not launch any infringement proceedings against Italy, in the wake of an agreement, mediated by the Minister of Economy and Finance Giancarlo Giorgetti, according to which the majority parties will guarantee to support Ursula von der Leyen and her Commission.
Of the Italian majority, in fact, only the Forza Italia MEPs had voted the confidence with which the current European Commission took office. The agreement would therefore provide for the support, without specifying in what form, of the other political forces that make up the majority.
The agreement would be the result of a negotiation started with Brussels, in the context of which Giorgetti met twice with the Commissioner for Financial Services, Maria Luís Albuquerque. Meloni also allegedly had contacts with the Commission, in particular with President von der Leyen.
The facts
A thorny issue that of Golden power which in fact pits Unicredit and the Government against one another. In mid-July, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court had “partially” accepted Unicredit’s appeal against the exercise of the Golden Power, which had placed limits on the OPS on Banco BPM. The Administrative Court of Lazio, in particular, had accepted two points of the appeal presented by the bank against the Prime Ministerial Decree (Dpcm) on the Golden Power and had “rejected” two others, which were considered legitimate.
Among the two canceled points was the time reference (5 years) of the request “not to reduce for a period of five years the loan/deposit ratio practiced by Banco BPM and UniCredit in Italy, with the aim of increasing loans to national families and SMEs”. The second canceled point concerned the obligation to maintain the level of the project finance portfolio. However, there was no comment on the prescription of the Prime Ministerial Decree which imposed Unicredit’s exit from Russia and on the need to maintain Anima’s investments in Anima’s Italian assets.
The decision of the TAR and the concomitant findings of the EU, which had hypothesized a conflict of the Prime Ministerial Decree on Golden Power with the European legislation on mergers and had given the Italian Government 20 days to clarify the position in this regard, had also pushed Consob to suspend the OPS for 30 days, due to the “situation of uncertainty created” which did not allow investors “to reach a well-founded opinion on the offer”. A decision which ultimately led the Piazza Gae Aulenti Institute to withdraw the offer.
