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    Noch nie seit Benito Mussolini war Italiens Politik so sehr auf eine einzige Person zugeschnitten: Mario Draghi. Alle grösseren Parteien wollen ihn unterstützen, mit Ausnahme der Neofaschisten von Giorgia Meloni – doch selbst sie wurden von anderen Neofaschisten der Alleanza Nazionale AN aufgefordert, nicht gegen Draghi zu opponieren.

     Eine für italiensche Verhältnisse geradezu unglaubliche Einstimmigkeit. Offensichtlich hat der Salotto, die Politklasse, begriffen, dass Draghi Italien die letzte Chance vor dem endgültigen Absturz bietet.

     Er hat Staatspräsident Sergio Mattarella vor Annahme des Auftrags zur Regierungsbildung klar gemacht, dass er nicht bereit ist, die üblichen Machtspielchen des Salotto mitzumachen. Die Parteien scheinen das verstanden zu haben.

     Noch sind die Hoffnungen, die Draghi verkörpert, gross. Ein Italiener, den Brüssel und die Welt kennt und respektiert. Ein Manager, der als Chef der Europäischen Zentralbank bewiesen hat, dass er mit einem Wort den Euro und Italiens Finanzen retten kann. Ein Experte, dem man zutraut, dass er die Europäische Union modernisieren und Italien-freundlicher gestalten könnte.

    So gross sind die Hoffnungen, dass sie Super-Mario fast erdrücken könnten. Und sie erzeugen die bange Frage, was passiert, wenn Draghi nicht so liefern kann, wie Italien es erwartet? Die ersten Probleme tauchen schon bei der Gestaltung der Kabinettsliste auf. Wer bekommt die begehrten poltrone – die Lehnsessel der Ministerämter?

    Noch kritischer wird es, wenn Draghi sein Arbeitsprogramm und Budget vorstellt. Werden die Parteien ihre in jahrelangen Grabenkämpfen ausgefeilten Positionen einem gesamtitalienischen Interesse unterordnen – werden sie Draghis Machtwort schlucken, wenn er Knoten durchhauen muss?

     Die kommenden Wochen und hoffentlich Monate dürften spannend werden, für Italien und Europa. Brüssel, Berlin und Frankfurt werden Draghi die Däumchen halten, doch die Rating-Agenturen werden unbarmherzig zuschauen. Für sie gilt kein Draghi-Bonus.

 

Benedikt Brenner

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L’Italia è rientrata nel ristretto gruppo dei paesi creditori verso l’estero. Pur con la pandemia, migliora la nostra posizione creditoria e, dunque, la stabilità finanziaria. Il programma di acquisti della Bce ha favorito le attività di imprese e famiglie.

Attività sull’estero superiori alle passività

    Nell’ultimo rapporto sui conti esteri della nostra economica, la Banca d’Italia ha certificato un’importante novità: “Alla fine di settembre 2020 la posizione netta sull’estero dell’Italia era marginalmente creditoria per 3,1 miliardi di euro (0,2 per cento del Pil), dopo oltre 30 anni di continui saldi negativi. Il miglioramento rispetto alla fine di giugno, pari a 31,7 miliardi, è dovuto per oltre tre quarti al surplus di conto corrente”.

    Per la prima volta dalla metà degli anni Ottanta l’Italia è ritornata ad avere attività sull’estero superiori alle passività. Un risultato che è frutto di quel sentiero stretto, volto al raggiungimento di una maggiore stabilità finanziaria, che la nostra economia ha imboccato in risposta alla cosiddetta crisi dello spread. Infatti, anche se la posizione debitoria sull’estero dell’Italia non ha mai raggiunto o superato il 35 per cento del Pil fissato dalla Commissione europea come limite per lo squilibrio macroeconomico, la stessa Commissione dovette rilevare che “gli sviluppi verificatisi in Italia nel 2011-2012 dimostrano che anche una posizione patrimoniale netta sull’estero lievemente negativa può rendere un paese vulnerabile a un’inversione dell’afflusso di capitali esteri, con ricadute negative per l’economia”. Questo a conferma della tesi che vede i paesi con una posizione netta sull’estero (Pne) negativa più frequentemente sottoposti alla perdita di fiducia dei mercati, con conseguenti fenomeni di sudden stop dei flussi di capitali, default o ristrutturazione del debito estero e ricorso all’assistenza finanziaria di organismi internazionali (Fmi, Banca Mondiale o Mes).

    Per capire come l’economia italiana sia riuscita a ritornare in attivo sull’estero, occorre guardare ai flussi delle partite correnti e del conto capitale cumulati in questi anni. Al netto degli aggiustamenti di valutazione, la variazione della Pne all’interno di un determinato arco temporale è pari al saldo di partite correnti e conto capitale registrato nello stesso periodo.

Figura 1 – Determinanti della variazione della posizione patrimoniale netta sull’estero dell’Italia dal 1 trimestre 2014 al 3 trimestre 2020. Dati in miliardi di euro.

Fonte: dati Banca d’Italia

La ripartizione tra settori

    Come si nota dalla figura 1, il contributo maggiore al miglioramento della Pne è legato al commercio dei beni. La debole domanda interna di questi anni ha compresso le importazioni portandole ben sotto il livello delle esportazioni. Il conto “Merci” della bilancia dei pagamenti ha registrato dal 2014 al terzo trimestre 2020 un surplus di circa 357 miliardi di euro.

    Un altro importante contributo positivo è stato offerto dal conto “Redditi primari”. Per un paese debitore netto e che non ha capacità da centro finanziario globale ci si aspetterebbe che i redditi primari siano negativi, che paghi all’estero più interessi e dividendi rispetto a quelli che riceve. Invece l’Italia, grazie principalmente alla riduzione dei tassi d’interesse conseguente alle politiche espansive della Banca centrale europea, ormai da 4 anni ha raggiunto il surplus in questa voce, che nel 2020 supera i 20 miliardi di euro.

    Il conto “Servizi”, dove confluiscono anche i flussi legati al turismo, e i “Redditi secondari”, legati per la gran parte alle rimesse e ai trasferimenti netti alla Ue, hanno invece offerto un contributo negativo. Infine, grazie a circa 127 miliardi di miglioramento nelle valutazioni delle attività estere o diminuzione di valore delle passività, si è raggiunta una posizione patrimoniale netta sull’estero positiva.

    Essa però non è ripartita in modo uniforme tra i vari macro-settori dell’economia italiana.

I settori istituzionali pubblici – stato e banca centrale – continuano ad avere una posizione netta abbondantemente negativa. Anche le banche registrano ancora una posizione debitoria, pur essendo notevolmente migliorata rispetto ai circa 260 miliardi del 2014 e ai 400 miliardi raggiunti durante gli anni della crisi dello spread.

    Gli altri settori, costituiti da imprese non bancarie e famiglie, dal 2014 ad oggi hanno invece quasi raddoppiato le proprie attività nette sull’estero, che son passate dai 546 miliardi di inizio 2014 ai 1.087 miliardi del terzo trimestre 2020. In questi anni cioè gli italiani hanno continuato ad acquisire attività nette all’estero, favoriti anche dal programma di acquisti della Bce, che ha liberato liquidità aggiuntiva per esser investita in titoli e fondi esteri.

    Le ultime previsioni macroeconomiche, pur ipotizzando che lo stimolo fiscale varato per fronteggiare gli effetti della pandemia determini una ripresa della domanda interna e quindi delle importazioni, vedono ancora stabile al 3 per cento del Pil il surplus di partite correnti dell’economia italiana. Le maggiori importazioni dovrebbero esser infatti bilanciate da una analoga dinamica favorevole dell’export, dalla ripresa dei flussi turistici e da un saldo attivo nei trasferimenti con la Ue in conseguenza del Recovery Fund. La posizione creditoria dell’Italia e quindi la sua stabilità finanziaria è destinata a migliorare. Rimangono punti di debolezza legati al settore pubblico, strutturalmente in debito verso l’estero, e alle banche che ancora non hanno recuperato una Pne positiva. Preoccupa di meno la posizione della Banca d’Italia, peggiorata in modo considerevole in questi ultimi 10 anni, ma dovuta esclusivamente al saldo verso l’eurosistema Target2. Un saldo che è conseguenza delle decisioni di politica monetaria della Bce e che, come ripetuto in una serie di occasioni, dovrà essere regolato solo nella remota ipotesi in cui un paese decida di abbandonare la moneta unica.

    Anche se sono lontani i valori raggiunti dai grandi paesi manifatturieri (Cina, Germania, Giappone), l’Italia è ritornata nel 2020 a far parte dei paesi creditori verso l’estero, un “club” che fino al trimestre scorso contava solo otto paesi dell’Unione europea e nessuno dei cosiddetti periferici.

Francesco Lenzi -- LaVoce.info

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Italy has re-entered the small group of foreign creditor countries. Even with the pandemic, our credit position and therefore financial stability has improved. The ECB's purchase program has favoured the activities of companies and households.

Foreign assets exceeding liabilities

    In its latest report on the foreign accounts of our economy, the Bank of Italy certified an important change: "At the end of September 2020, Italy's net foreign position was marginally in credit by 3.1 billion euros (0.2 per cent of GDP), after more than 30 years of continuous negative balances. The improvement with respect to the end of June, equal to 31.7 billion, is due for more than three quarters to the current account surplus".

    For the first time since the mid-1980s, Italy has returned to having foreign assets in excess of liabilities. This result is the result of the narrow path, aimed at achieving greater financial stability, that our economy took in response to the so-called spread crisis. In fact, although Italy's foreign debt position has never reached or exceeded the 35 per cent of GDP set by the European Commission as the limit for macroeconomic imbalance, the Commission itself had to note that "the developments that occurred in Italy in 2011-2012 show that even a slightly negative net international investment position can make a country vulnerable to a reversal of foreign capital inflows, with negative repercussions for the economy". This confirms the thesis that countries with a negative net international investment position (NIIP) are more frequently subject to a loss of market confidence, resulting in a sudden stop in capital flows, default or restructuring of foreign debt and recourse to financial assistance from international bodies (IMF, World Bank or MES).

    In order to understand how the Italian economy managed to return to a foreign surplus, it is necessary to look at current account and capital account flows accumulated in recent years. Net of valuation adjustments, the change within a given timeframe is equal to the current account and capital account balance recorded over the same period.

Figure 1 - Determinants of the change in Italy's net international investment position from Q1 2014 to Q3 2020. Data in billions of euros.

Source of data: Banca d’Italia

Breakdown by sector

    As can be seen from Figure 1, the greatest contribution to the improvement in the Pne is linked to trade in goods. Weak domestic demand in recent years has compressed imports, bringing them well below the level of exports. The "Goods" account of the balance of payments recorded a surplus of around 357 billion euros from 2014 to the third quarter of 2020.

    Another important positive contribution came from the "Primary Income" account. For a country that is a net debtor and has no capacity as a global financial center, one would expect primary incomes to be negative, to pay more interest and dividends abroad than it receives. On the other hand, Italy, thanks mainly to the reduction in interest rates resulting from the expansionary policies of the European Central Bank, has for four years now achieved a surplus in this item, which in 2020 will exceed 20 billion euros.

    On the other hand, the "Services" account, which also includes flows linked to tourism, and "Secondary income", largely linked to remittances and net transfers to the EU, made a negative contribution. Finally, thanks to an improvement in the valuation of foreign assets or a decrease in the value of liabilities by approximately 127 billion, a positive net international investment position was achieved.

    However, it is not evenly distributed among the various macro-sectors of the Italian economy.

    The public institutional sectors - state and central bank - continue to have a largely negative net position. Banks, too, still have a debt position, albeit one that has improved considerably from around 260 billion in 2014 and the 400 billion reached during the years of the spread crisis.

    On the other hand, the other sectors, consisting of non-banking companies and households, have almost doubled their net foreign assets from 2014 to date, from 546 billion at the beginning of 2014 to 1,087 billion in the third quarter of 2020. In these years, that is, Italians have continued to acquire net foreign assets, also favored by the ECB's purchase program, which has freed up additional liquidity to be invested in foreign securities and funds.

    The latest macroeconomic forecasts, even assuming that the fiscal stimulus launched to deal with the effects of the pandemic will lead to a recovery in domestic demand and, therefore, in imports, see the current account surplus of the Italian economy still stable at 3% of GDP. The higher imports should, in fact, be balanced by a similar favorable trend in exports, a recovery in tourist flows and a positive balance in transfers with the EU as a result of the Recovery Fund. Italy's credit position and therefore its financial stability is set to improve. Weaknesses remain linked to the public sector, which is structurally in debt to the outside world, and to the banks, which have not yet recovered a positive Pne. Of less concern is the position of the Bank of Italy, which has worsened considerably over the last 10 years, but this is exclusively due to the balance with the Target2 Eurosystem. A balance that is a consequence of the ECB's monetary policy decisions and that, as repeated on a number of occasions, will have to be adjusted only in the unlikely event that a country decides to leave the single currency.

    Even if the values attained by the large manufacturing countries (China, Germany, Japan) are far from being reached, in 2020 Italy has returned to be part of the foreign creditor countries, a "club" that until last quarter counted only eight EU countries and none of the so-called peripheral countries.

Francesco Lenzi -- LaVoce.info

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In Turkey, the Erdogan government continues to persecute the followers of Fethullah Gülen, a preacher who fell out with his former ally Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In order to track down hidden Gülenists, Erdogan's police appears very creative, as discussed in Turkish Minute, an opposition webzine published outside Turkey, probably by the Gülen movement.

 

   “Who introduced you to your spouse?” is one of the questions routinely asked during the interrogation of people detained as part of investigations into the Gülen movement in Turkey. This seemingly odd question about private life is connected to the mass incarceration of thousands of people in the country. A police operation on the morning of Jan. 26 that led to the detention of 19 upon warrants issued by Ankara prosecutors was just one example.

   The detainees are charged with forming the “marriage network” of the Gülen group, which is accused by the Turkish government of orchestrating a failed coup in July 2016 despite its denial of any involvement. According to the prosecutors, the suspects taken into custody were involved in efforts to help single Gülen movement followers get married.

   “In the framework of investigations into FETÖ’s current marriage network, detention warrants have been issued in Ankara for 19 suspects across 13 provinces who have been identified in informant testimonies as being affiliated with the FETÖ/PDY,” the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office said in a written statement, using the derogatory terminology that the Turkish government and authorities have adopted to refer to the group.

Intel criteria for identifying Gülen followers

   Family is also one of the fields that the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) looks into as part of their efforts to uncover members of the faith-based group. Having a handicapped child is also one of MİT’s criteria as Gülen followers often choose not to abort their handicapped babies out of religious considerations.

   Another criterion is how the spouses met each other. If the couple was introduced to each other with the help of a Gülen follower, the entire family is identified as such.

   Coming from a modest socioeconomic background and climbing up in society is also one of the criteria. For instance, high-ranking civil servants or military officers who grew up in rural areas and in families without other high-level bureaucrats are also suspected.

   Getting an education abroad and speaking foreign languages are also listed as criteria as many Gülen followers, particularly those in public service, have gone abroad for education at some point in their lives and their linguistic skills are often above the national average.

   Among the many criteria, those who fulfill at least three are usually identified as suspected Gülen movement members and referred by prosecutors to courts for arrest.

Police registering stories of marriage

   According to Interior Ministry data, some 550,000 people in Turkey have been the subject of Gülen-related investigations, and about 170,000 have thus far been arrested for varying periods of time. Some 30,000 are currently held behind bars, and thousands of cases are still pending before courts.

Cevheri Güven -- Turkish Minute

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