'Outraged' finance minister quits over Italian bank row
September 23, 2005
Rome - Italian finance minister Domenico Siniscalco resigned yesterday, saying he was "outraged" at government reluctance to put pressure on central bank governor Antonio Fazio to leave office.
The right wing government also faces serious problems with its draft 2006 budget. Italy has one of the highest public debts in the EU, annual overspending has long exceeded euro zone limits and the economy is just emerging from a six-month recession.
Siniscalco resigned 18 days after saying Fazio should step down because of suspicions that he had shown favouritism amid takeover turbulence in Italian banking.
Press reports suggested that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi might take over Siniscalco's job for an interim period.
Although remarks by Siniscalco suggested that the row over Fazio was the main factor behind his resignation, Italian media commented that he might also have been motivated by attacks on his budget by members of the government.
The newspaper La Repubblica quoted Siniscalco as saying: "The problem is not Fazio but he who is incapable of resolving a problem. It is for this reason that I am not bitter; I am outraged."
Fazio was appointed central bank head in 1993 for an unlimited period. The Bank of Italy is independent and only its internal supervisory board of 13 members can dismiss him.
But Siniscalco has argued that an official request by Berlusconi for Fazio to resign on the grounds that he had lost credibility would have resulted in the departure of the governor, who is under attack from almost all political quarters.
However, Berlusconi has gone no further than to say that the outcome is a matter for Fazio and his "personal conscience".
Piero Fassino, the secretary-general of the main opposition force, the Democrats of the Left, said Siniscalco's resignation "marks the final collapse of a government majority that has been in crisis for months". He urged Berlusconi to resign and call an early general election.
Fazio is under pressure owing to evidence that he compromised his impartiality in takeover battles for Italian banks Banca Antonveneta and Banca Nazionale del Lavoro.
He was accused of favouring bids from Italian investors at the expense of Dutch bank ABN Amro and Spanish bank Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.
Fazio, who says he has acted with probity throughout, was put on centre stage as a result of monitoring by prosecutors of his telephone conversations, which appeared to reveal him showing partiality and which found their way into the press.
-From Sapa-AFP
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