Italy’s government has no intention to tax banks’ “legitimate profits,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore, just weeks after her right-wing government roiled markets with a surprise announcement of a windfall tax on lenders.
(Bloomberg) — Italy’s government has no intention to tax banks’ “legitimate profits,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore, just weeks after her right-wing government roiled markets with a surprise announcement of a windfall tax on lenders.
The Aug. 8 decision, slipped into a package of other measures, briefly sent bank shares tumbling and led many investors to openly question the administration’s economic policy. Rome later rowed back on the measure, offering a number of qualifications on the new levy.
But taxing what she called “extra profits” at Italian lenders would be “common sense,” Meloni told Sole in the interview published Wednesday. The premier, who has regularly locked horns with the European Central Bank, said those profits were a result of the ECB’s decision to raise interest rates.
Meloni’s government has taken an active role in a range of corporate sectors, from banks to aviation to technology. Italy on Monday approved a decree that empowers the state to take a stake in Telecom Italia SpA’s network business, part of an effort by the increasingly activist government to assert more control over strategic assets.
The premier on Wednesday defended that policy, telling Il Sole that Rome had “made a choice” to retain public control of the carrier’s network in the interest of defending free markets.
Meloni also confirmed that Italy’s controversial role in China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project will be discussed in parliament. Rome has been under pressure from the US to pull out of the program, and Meloni pledged to protect trade relations with China regardless of the fate of the pact.
Addressing the Stability and Growth Pact — a set of rules to ensure that countries in the European Union pursue sound public finances and coordinate fiscally — Meloni said investments in ecological transition and defense should not fall under the pact’s regulations. The premier and her allies have also regularly clashed with the EU over budgetary issues.
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