Talking Europe interviews Irene Tinagli, who chairs the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and is a prominent member of Italy’s Democratic Party (PD). She calls for the completion of the EU’s Banking Union to protect people’s deposits, and for an EU budget that is up to the challenges the bloc faces today. We also touch on the post-Covid national Recovery and Resilience Plans, especially Italy’s plan, and on the Italian government’s decision to declare a state of emergency as a significant influx of migrants arrives on Italian shores.
Italian economist and MEP Irene Tinagli
On the issue of insuring bank deposits, Tinagli says: “The problem is that the banking system is very much interlinked; there are a lot of inter-connections and there is systemic risk. A crisis that happens in one country could spread out. We need to make sure that all European citizens are protected. We see how fast certain crises are dealt with in the United States where they have such an instrument; we don’t have that instrument. We have created a banking union in which the first two pillars are working, but we need the third pillar – the deposit insurance scheme – at the European level. And we have all the experts and authorities that come to the parliament’s public hearings and they say, ‘please, complete the Banking Union!'”
Tinagli questions whether the current EU budget is fit for purpose. “I’m in favour of having a real, strong European budget to support European infrastructures; to support European industry; to support the single market in a time of great challenges,” she says. “Right now most of the investment that is needed is falling on the shoulders of the member states. This is not feasible or healthy. This burden could lead to more divergences, more unequal growth and less competitiveness.”
But shouldn’t existing money, for example in the post-Covid recovery funds, be spent first, before creating any new joint financing?
“Most of the Recovery and Resilience Fund money consists of loans, so that is going to increase the debt of member states,” Tinagli responds. “Also, the time horizon is very short. Not all member states have the capacity to absorb and invest that money in such a short time span. Especially if we consider that since we created the recovery fund, a war broke out at the border of the European Union, there was an energy crisis; some priorities changed. So we really have to understand the difficult circumstances that EU states have found themselves in over the last year.”
Tinagli goes on to say that the Italian government is falling behind in investing the money from the Recovery and Resilience Fund for Italy.
“The main ministers that are supervising the implementation of the national resilience plan have said that there are problems in making sure that all the targets and milestones are completed on time,” she affirms. “There is a negotiation going on with the European Commission. But we still don’t know exactly what the Italian government wants to do to in terms of changing the priorities because this is what the prime minister said, even during the electoral campaign. They campaigned saying they wanted to change the national plan. But they never said exactly which projects they wanted to change, in favour of what? And now it’s been months and months, and we still don’t have the new plan. And the clock is ticking!”
Asked whether she thinks declaring a state of emergency in response to the migrant crisis was the right decision, Tinagli says: “Frankly, I don’t think so. We’ve always had this problem in Italy. It’s not a new problem. We’ve lived with this for decades. For sure, it’s something we need to act upon, something we need to push the European institutions and the European Union on. On that I agree with our government. We need more involvement from other member states. But I’m not sure about declaring an emergency which gives additional powers to address something that is not a one-shot emergency but a structural problem that needs to have structural answers.”
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