The Bank of Italy denies any concrete plans for the early departure of its governor | Photo credits: International Monetary Fund
(With declaration of the Bank of Italy)
ROME, June 28 (Reuters) – The Bank of Italy on Tuesday denied plans for an early departure of its governor, after a report in the daily Il Foglio suggested that Ignazio Visco could leave office in October, a year before the end of his mandate, to allow the government to choose his successor before the legislative elections next year.
According to Il Foglio, who cites what he presents as influential sources, the President of the Council, Mario Draghi, himself a former President of the European Central Bank, could thus appoint a high-level profile such as Fabio Panetta, who sits for the moment on the Executive Board of the ECB.
The resignation of the governor of the Bank of Italy is not on the table, said a spokesman for the national central bank in reaction to this article.
Legislative elections are due to take place in the first half of 2023.
Il Foglio specifies that an early departure of Ignazio Visco would be part of a project aimed at “putting in place as many useful bolts as possible in the mechanisms of the country” in order to prevent populist parties from influencing appointments such as that of the governor of the national central bank.
This “bolt operation” would also include the appointments to come at the head of the tax administration and public companies such as the oil group Eni, Enel, the country’s leading electricity producer, or the defense specialist Leonardo .
The mandate of Ignazio Visco, who has headed the Bank of Italy since 2011, runs in principle until October 2023. (Report Stefano Bernabei and Giselda Vagnoni, French version Marc Angrand, edited by Sophie Louet)