Italy’s prime minister, Mario Monti, has been meeting with other European heads of state in an effort to make clear what he believes his country needs to both get through its own debt crisis and to help stave off a debacle on the continent. Monti’s argument is not that Italy needs more money, but that Europe needs better government.
In a story on MarketWatch, Monti is quoted:
We never imagined that the return should be money from any particular member state. We don’t need concessions. What we need is a sufficiently effective governance system that is able to eliminate the risk markets associate with the euro zone.
The MarketWatch article notes that Monti also told German Chancellor Angela Merkel “that sustaining the deep fiscal consolidation undertaken by Italy ‘will be very difficult unless there is some return.’”
In other words, “this austerity push has got to stop because otherwise the entire Eurozone will go up in flames.” This is a pretty direct approach for a European technocrat.
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