Italy PM calls for dialogue with ECB over Monte Paschi, says no sign Berlin market attacker had network in Italy

Record ID: 162659

  • Title: Italy PM calls for dialogue with ECB over Monte Paschi, says no sign Berlin market attacker had network in Italy
  • Date: 29th December 2016
  • Summary: ROME, ITALY (DECEMBER 29, 2016) (REUTERS) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER PAOLO GENTILONI ARRIVING FOR YEAREND NEWS CONFERENCE MEDIA NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER, PAOLO GENTILONI, SAYING: "We have safeguarded savings with the decree issued around a week ago. Putting this decree into practice will be long and complicated, we aren't hiding that, but it is a strategic and fundamental decision." GENTILONI AT PODIUM (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER, PAOLO GENTILONI, SAYING: "It is very important that the reasons behind this assessment are shared, clearly, and that there is a dialogue, because we need to handle this issue together in the upcoming months. This is not an issue that can be solved solely through statements. This is the signal we have sent with our economy minister and we count on constructive collaboration in the next weeks. We will naturally stick to our guns." JOURNALIST ASKING QUESTION (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER, PAOLO GENTILONI, SAYING: "Completing the reforms and giving a contribution, a small contribution, to the mending of the many lacerations of our country." NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER, PAOLO GENTILONI, SAYING: "Attention, because radicalisation in the majority of the cases is radicalisation that takes place in our home; in our prisons, our neighbourhoods and that is what's been at the origin in many of the attacks carried out in Europe in the past year-and-a-half." PHOTOGRAPHER (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER, PAOLO GENTILONI, SAYING: "We have no evidence of particular networks, from an intelligence point of view, that Amri had in Italy." NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER, PAOLO GENTILONI, SAYING: "We will seek to use our G7 presidency to try to contribute to the building of different type of relations with Russia. Italy can play a role in this. There is no need to renounce principles, it is a case of renouncing any possible ideas there may be of a return to the reasonings and ideologies of the Cold War which make no sense in the current situation." MEDIA GENTILONI SAYING 'THANK YOU' AND LEAVING PODIUM PHOTOGRAPHER GENTILONI LEAVING
  • Embargoed: 13th January 2017 16:04
  • Keywords: Italy Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni end-year news conference
  • Location: ROME, ITALY
  • City: ROME, ITALY
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Economic Events,Equities Markets
  • Reuters ID: LVA0015EXRWW7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:New Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who took office just three weeks ago, on Thursday (December 29) held a traditional end-year news conference, calling on the European Central Bank (ECB) to discuss with Italy the reasons behind its assessment that Banca Monte dei Paschi had a greater need for capital than previously thought.
    Gentiloni also said that implementing an emergency decree to prop up Italy's struggling banks would be a long and complicated process.
    The government approved the decree last week to bail out its third-largest bank, Monte Paschi, and pledged to protect the savings of around 40,000 retail investors.
    "We have safeguarded savings with the decree issued around a week ago. Putting this decree into practice will be long and complicated, we aren't hiding that, but it is a strategic and fundamental decision," Gentiloni said.
    Gentiloni said he had been surprised on Dec. 25 to receive news that the European banking regulator wanted Monte Paschi to plug a capital shortfall of 8.8 billion euros ($9.2 billion), higher than a previous estimate of 5 billion euros.
    "It is very important that the reasons behind this assessment are shared, clearly, and that there is a dialogue because we need to handle this issue together in the upcoming months. This is not an issue that can be solved solely through statements. This is the signal we have sent with our economy minister and we count on constructive collaboration in the next weeks. We will naturally stick to our guns," Gentiloni said.
    In a two-and-a-half hour news conference, Gentiloni, 62, said he aimed to restore unity and cohesion to the country following a divisive referendum and continue economic reforms begun by his predecessor Matteo Renzi.
    A particular focus would be on labour reforms and helping under-developed southern regions, Gentiloni said.
    "(Our priority will be) Completing the reforms and giving a contribution, a small contribution, to the mending of the many lacerations of our country," he said.
    Gentiloni, formerly foreign minister, took over after Renzi resigned after almost three years in power when his proposed constitutional reform was rejected in a Dec. 4 referendum.
    Gentiloni also told journalists there was no sign the man suspected of killing 12 people with a truck at a Berlin Christmas market on Dec. 19 had a network in Italy.
    Anis Amri, a Tunisian, first arrived in Europe by boat to the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2011, and was shot dead by police in Milan four days after the Dec. 19 attack in Berlin.
    Italian police have searched three houses in and around Rome, where Amri may have spent time, a judicial source said on Thursday.
    The searches focused in the capital and nearby Acilia, where he was thought to have stayed after leaving a detention centre in Sicily in 2015, the source said. Police are investigating whether he was seeking to stay in Italy or trying to reach another country.
    Gentiloni said Amri was probably radicalised after arriving in Europe in 2011, but added that the government had no evidence Amri had "particular networks" in Italy.
    "Attention, because radicalisation in the majority of the cases is radicalisation that takes place in our home; in our prisons, our neighbourhoods and that is what's been at the origin in many of the attacks carried out in Europe in the past year and a half," Gentiloni said.
    "We have no evidence of particular networks -- from an intelligence point of view -- that Amri had in Italy," he added.
    Amri's undetected passage to Italy, via France, from Germany after the attack, has prompted eurosceptic parties to call for the reintroduction of border controls that were removed by the continent's open-border Schengen pact.
    Italy tried to deport him to Tunisia after he completed a four-year jail term for attempting to set fire to a building, but Tunisian authorities refused to take him, so he was released from the centre.
    Discussing his government's international commitments in the upcoming year, Gentiloni said Italy, with its G7 presidency in 2017, would seek to improve ties with Russia.
    "We will seek to use our G7 presidency to try to contribute to the building of different type of relations with Russia. Italy can play a role in this. There is no need to renounce principles, it is a case of renouncing any possible ideas there may be of a return to the reasoning and ideologies of the Cold War which make no sense in the current situation," he said.
    Italy is due to host a G7 summit in Sicily's Taormina in May 2017.
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