Italy Gets Starvation Rations From Mario Draghi
Even if it wanted to, there’s not much the ECB could do to help Italian bondholders, apart from some more cheap credit for the country’s banks.
Here's what the ECB could do to help Italy: not very much.
Photographer: Dario Pignatelli/BloombergWhat could the European Central Bank realistically do to help Italy, even if it were so minded? Not much, is the depressing answer — in specific new aid anyway. That’s unless Italy ends up getting itself in such a mess that it’s forced to hand over financial control and enter into another ECB bailout program.
We’re nowhere near that point, of course, and it’s certainly not something the ruling populist coalition would countenance. In the meantime, Italian government bond investors will have to fend for themselves through Rome’s ongoing budget battle with the European Union up until May’s European Parliament elections. The only thing ECB boss Mario Draghi can realistically do is try not to make the situation worse.