Swoboda: The firs priority for Italy and Bersani is to form a stable government

The President of the S&D Group (Socialists and Democrats) “It is up to Epp to remind Berlusconi to act in a resposable manner”

Verhofstadt (Alde): “The EU shares responsibility, a lot of back-slapping to Monti and no help”

They attacked, demonized, pointed him out as the sole bearer of responsibility for all the bad things in the country and they fear that Silvio Berlusconi could damage Italy again, declared Hannes Swoboda, President of the Social and Democratic Group in the European Parliament. PD leader Pierluigi Bersani expressed with few words yesterday on Twitter that Swoboda affirms that now “the Democratic Party must take it upon themselves – the difficult responsibility of trying to establish stability and forming a government capable of enacting the necessary reforms.” The S&D leader cannot help noticing that in Italy “citizens are demonstrating their own discontent for the austerity policy and the lack of faith in the future,” but now he reiterates “the first priority for Italy now is to form a stable government to assure a return to economic growth, employment and a decent lifestyle for all Italians.” The Austrian politician one says “confident of the fact that the PD and Pier Luigi Bersani will make the necessary reforms to end the crisis in Italy — in cooperation with the people and the social representatives and not against them.” And to do this, according to him, it will be necessary for Silvio Berlusconi to not get in the way: “He is still a member of the PPE and therefore it is still up to the EPP to remind him to act in a responsible manner, as opposed to how he acted during the electoral campaign.”

Even the President of the European Parliament is worried about what is happening in Italy. According to Martin Schulz the election results were “very difficult for the country and for all of Europe” because there is a need for “a stable government in one of the most important countries of the EU” and to achieve that “all political and democratic forces needs to work together.” “Italy is a G8 country and one of the economic pillars of the Euro zone” and thus “what happened there has repercussions on all of us” Schulz explained. According to the German politician it is necessary to “take very seriously the fact that many Italians expressed a vote of protest toward the measures taken in Italy, but perceived as measures of the EU.” The problem, as the President of Parliament often repeats, is above all perception, inasmuch according to him “the success belongs to the government, Europe gets the blame. This is not true but it is the perception of public opinion and we must find a way to oppose this phenomenon.”

Guy Verhofstadt, President of the Liberalist Group, Alde, also hopes for such a seemingly difficult formation of a government. According to the former Belgian Minister, “the Italian constituency is squashed between two concurrent populisms: that of Berlusconi and the other of Grillo.” Nonetheless, European leaders must learn a lesson from these elections, and that is that “fiscal discipline is absolutely necessary but it is not a sufficient response on its own to tackle the crisis” and for this it is necessary “to apply a two track approach that combines austerity with solidarity and policies for growth. It is not a choice between the two; both are essential.” According to Verhofstadt, “the EU shares part of the responsibility for the election results from last night because they did not respond to the repeated requests for help from Mario Monti when he asked to lower interest rates on the huge Italian debt.” Instead, “the help Monti asked the Italian people were wasted on paying the interest, when instead it should have contributed to investment for growth.”  In other words, Verhofstadt concludes, “the only thing Monti received from his European colleagues was lots of pats on the back.”

Not of a single word from the European People’s Party, the group in which Berlusconi militates, but who agreed to back Monti. They promised written notice. As soon as he arrives we will inform our reders.

 Alfonso Bianchi