Meloni and Giorgetti's silence on Berlin's diktat on UniCredit

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The German government has officially asked UniCredit to backtrack on Commerzbank : "We expect UniCredit to abandon its takeover attempt," said Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil. Aside from the unusual statement, it's as if Germany were asking the European Union to backtrack on the single capital market. And what is the Meloni government doing? It's silent . Yet this would be an opportunity to call on Germany to respect European principles, reciprocating Berlin's criticism of Italy for its anti-European stance, such as its failure to ratify the reform of the ESM, the European Stability Mechanism, through which Rome is blocking the introduction of the backstop, a key component of the Banking Union. Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, who in other times would have responded in kind to his German counterpart Klingbeil, is not commenting this time.

Indeed, in a statement, the Ministry of Economy and Finance announced that, during a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergei Marchenko, it discussed the exclusion from Kyiv's reconstruction of "anyone who has benefited, in any capacity, from proceeds from doing business in Russia." No companies are named, but among them is UniCredit, whose continued presence in Russia is the basis for one of the government's requirements for the acquisition of Banco BPM.

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Of course, this is just a coincidence between the Merz government's statement and the Conference on the Reconstruction of Ukraine currently underway in Rome. But it's as if an alignment of interests has emerged between Italy and Germany—each in its own country, with its own banks, doing as it pleases—whose victim, in both cases, is Unicredit: in Italy for the bid for BPM and in Germany for the bid for Commerzbank . Yet, Giorgetti could boast about how Italy has achieved such a solid banking system that its second-largest institution has conquered Germany's third. Who would have ever thought this a decade ago, when the Italian credit system was strained by defaults and a mountain of non-performing loans?

One might point out to Klingbell that Commerzbank is under siege for a reason, such as the recovery phase following the bank's severe crisis having not yet yielded optimal results. But this, obviously, is not Giorgetti's place. It would be, instead, to defend the legitimate market initiative of an Italian bank, which is vying to become Europe's leading banking champion in the context of a barrier-free capital market. Even the world's most famous banker, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, who recently met with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, said in an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore that the United States expects Europe to become more united and stronger. This concept necessarily includes a more competitive and integrated European financial system, capable of intercepting the growing flows of capital fleeing the United States, which are choosing Europe as a safe haven. Market observers speak of an unprecedented repositioning of wealth, but they also assure that the capital market in Europe is too fragmented to fully seize this opportunity and, conversely, to prevent €300 billion in private wealth from migrating to the United States every year, financing that country's businesses, debt, and defense .

All this has a lot to do with the Italian and German banking game. It does because the European Commission, which already frowned upon governments' sovereignist tendencies regarding bank mergers, certainly won't be able to endorse Germany's position or allow individual states to decide on mergers at their own discretion, as Italy is also doing. The argument used by the Germans—Commerzbank is a systemically important bank, it has demonstrated its ability to succeed even independently—is roughly the same one used by the Italian government to defend Banco BPM from UniCredit's takeover. Although, in this case, the difference is that Palazzo Chigi already seems to have a vision for the Milanese bank's future , which isn't one of independence but of completing the plan for a new major Italian banking hub alongside MPS and Mediobanca, with a significant role played by a "welcome" foreign shareholder like France's Crédit Agricole.

In all this, one might wonder where the market has gone, a role often invoked by political actors themselves when someone raises doubts about the state's involvement in certain ongoing operations, only to then guide and determine the choices that will lead to the birth of a new financial structure for the country.

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