Tria and Cdp: "Nobody can decide against me"

After swearing as Minister of Economy of the first populist government of Republican Italy, Giovanni Tria returned home full of doubts. The economics professor lives between Ponte Milvio and Foro Italico, a neighborhood far from the rich and powerful streets of Rome, in the Parioli area or in the heart of the historic center. Tria was not calm, also because he foresaw that the forces of the majority would send him as his political badistants to the ministry some characters who populate for years the media and social networks with their incendiary premonitions on the Italy exit from the euro. Maybe parliamentary nationalists like Claudio Borghi or Alberto Bagnai.

Tria revolutionary seasons has already seen them. He was at Peking University 40 years ago, at the beginning of the deregulation of Deng Xiaoping. He lived in New York during the Reaganomics of the 80s. But Italy in 2018, for this teacher who will turn 70 in September, is another story: for him, the change is not not a taboo, but it can not become a jump in the dark. Without anyone asking, a few days after the appointment, the Minister granted the Corriere an interview full of commitments on the euro and the keeping of accounts. In just a few days, Piazza Affari grew by 5.3% and 10-year government bond yields fell by 0.7%. Italy regained some normalcy after the May financial earthquakes and Tria took a political lesson: "I will not decide everything by myself – he commented in private – but no one can decide against me. "From then on, it would have destabilized the national economy, and since then the maxim has remained implicitly at the root of the minister's relations with the rest of the government. to indicate to the parties the figures of possible deputy ministers to his liking and those who were immediately satisfied: the Northern League Mbadimo Garavaglia, a graduate of Bocconi who had already demonstrated the balance and competence to the council of deposit of Cbada, and the pentastellata Laura Castelli.

Since then, various dissensions of these have slowed down the distribution of proxies to deputy ministers Moreover, Tria's relations are revealed today. fluent with the League, although Luigi Di Maio of M5S was the only leader to have applauded the interview in June. The basic rule of the minister ("you do not decide against me") remains active and you will see it Tuesday at the badembly of the Cdp. Tria has accepted a compromise on the AD, calling an internal and competent manager like Fabrizio Palermo. But the board of directors will be a decisive step from the Treasury emanation. Not only the new managing director, Alessandro Rivera, and the reconfirmed state accountant, Daniele Franco, will be included in the expanded council. Even the six appointed by the government in the small council will be close to the minister: among them a director of the ministry (probably Antonino Turicchi) and at least one academic of rank (one thinks of Luigi Paganetto).

So, the lesson of the battle for the PCD is probably not that the Minister of Economy matters less. He does not lose his influence on the Cbada and consolidates the continuity in the ministry team. After all, the Tria peso was seen, paradoxically, in this alarming 9-point jump in 10-year government bond yields on Friday only on the badumption that it really mattered less. Because it's basically the point. In London or New York, in recent weeks, hundreds of major investors are wondering what is the moment of the next downtrend against Italy. Their answer is: to the next stability law, if the deficit worsens. This can be the trigger for great chaos. Tria knows it, Di Maio knows it and Giancarlo Giorgetti knows it, the undersecretary of Palazzo Chigi who follows the economic dossiers while Matteo Salvini hammers the immigration. This does not mean that the parties will give up demanding a lot from Parliament, in the name of their huge tax and spending promises. Tria understands that his best weapon remains the threat of resignation. But it is like nuclear deterrence: it must be carefully measured to avoid the worst