“It Belongs To The People, Not The Bankers” – Italy Moves To Seize Gold From Central Bank
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Sun, 04/07/2019
Two weeks ago, somewhat out of the blue, ECB President Mario Draghi issued an odd statement confirming that the European Central Bank needs to approve any operation in the foreign reserves of euro zone countries, including gold and large foreign currency holdings.
“The ECB shall approve both the operations in foreign reserve assets remaining with the NCBs (national central banks)…and Member States’ transactions with their foreign exchange working balances above a certain threshold,”
“The purpose of this competence is to ensure consistency with the exchange rate and monetary policy of the Union.”
Specifically, Draghi made this statement to two Italian members of the European Parliament.
At the time it did not seem notable for any reason other than its peculiar timing, but now things are starting to make more sense as The Wall Street Journal reports that Italy’s ruling populists pushed ahead this week with efforts to seize control of the central bank and its gold reserves.
Complaining that hundreds of thousands of small individual investors lost billions of dollars after several Italian banks failed in recent years, the anti-establishment ‘5 Star Movement’ and the nationalist ‘League’, depict the central bank as a symbol of a technocratic elite aloof from the needs of ordinary Italians.
“We need a change of course at the Bank of Italy if we think about what happened in the last years,” said Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio, leader of the 5 Star Movement.
The Rest…HERE
