ECB’s Visco: No Intervention Needed Over Italian Rates

13 October 2023

By Isabel Teles – MARRAKECH, Morocco (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Ignazio Visco on Friday said that there was no need for the ECB to intervene over Italian yields.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV during the 2023 annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, Visco, who heads the Banca d’Italia until the end of this month, said that the current situation in the country was far from the one in 2011 and 2012 and required no further action.

‘The differential of the Italian rates with respect to the German is relevant but far from that [fragmentation seen in 2011 and 2012]’, he said, ‘and there are no signs, really, that it should arise in a territory near which it would require us to intervene.’

He addressed the concerns about Italy’s public debt and said that the issue had to be better understood.

‘My impression is, while fiscal prudency is necessary’, he said, ‘I think for the next two years, there is nothing we can really do to increase our fiscal space, except a better composition of expenditures.’

Despite the possibility of unexpected developments in the Middle East, he said it did not impose a major risk to oil prices.

‘I don’t think that there would be the same risks we experienced when gas prices increased’, he said. ‘That is not the picture that I have’.

As for the inflation, he said that the ‘2% target is still in the making.’