The economic panic button has moved off Turkey onto Italy with Claudio Borghi, the chairman of Italy’s budget committee, sounding doom over the European Central Bank’s intention to cease to be the lender-of-last resort by the end of this year. He said, “The whole situation is unsustainable without an ECB guarantee, and the eurozone will collapse.”
Any rescue thereafter would require the backing of the EU bail-out fund (ESM), under draconian terms, subject to a vote in the Bundestag, which would not be acceptable to the new coalition in Rome. At which point they could activate their idea of a parallel currency to subvert monetary union from within. Any move by the ECB to extend bond purchases into next year would cause a political ruckus in Germany. Rock and a hard place which will push Brexit down the worry-list this autumn.
Italy isn’t like Greece or Portugal. It still has the EU’s second biggest manufacturing industry and a current account surplus and is a net contributor to Brussels. But it has had two lost decades since EU currencies were fixed. Prior to that it had a trade surplus with Germany. Ejecting Italy from the monetary union would be a disaster so won’t happen, with a chain-reaction of defaults, bringing down the European banking system with Germany losing around €2 trillion.
Matteo Salvini, strongman and Deputy PM of the government, is vehemently against what he describes as the ECB cage within which he says self-government is impossible – “the euro is a crime against humanity”.
It (or similar) certainly fits an astro-scenario on the EU chart with the Solar Arc Pluto conjunct the 2nd house Neptune, exact in around 9 months’ time. This could accompany widespread devastation. Followed in 14 months’ time, late in 2019, with the Solar Arc MC conjunct the 12th house EU Pluto which could suggest a variety of outcomes – from dirty tricks behind the scenes, to a dead-halt, to a bitter power struggle over future direction. By 2020 tr Neptune will square the EU Saturn for two years of panicky confusion and uncertainty.
The ECB 1 January 1999 12am chart is deeply aggravated this September and October; and looking flummoxed, directionless and sinking in a mire of confusion and disappointment with the Solar Arc Sun conjunct its Neptune in a year’s time.
The EU, ECB, Germany and UK have the tr Saturn opposition their respective Capricorn Suns this December for a sobering reality-check.
Both the Italy 17 March 1861 and the Republic 10 June 1946 in relationship to both the EU and Germany appear poles apart, tense, irritated through 2018/19. And the Italy 1861/Germany chart is especially at loggerheads in 2020/21 with tr Pluto opposition the composite Mars. No quick ‘n easy answers.
Ok, I wrote a long response on everything that’s wrong with The Italian economy, and was wrong
even when euro was established (Italy failed to meet the public debt treshold), and then delated it. I guess I can summerize all that to saying this isn’t the first time this happens. Italy didn’t meet the public debt treshold fixed by EU before joining euro, but that was overlooked. Ital has been defaulting at least 5 times in the past 10 years. Nothing, and nothing of that sticks. They always crawl out of it. Always. It may not mean the country is in best of shapes (looks devastated right now). But this Republic always lives up to that 1946 Republican Chart. There simply isn’t a way this all makes sense without that Sun conjunct Uranus in Gemini.
Oh I don’t know – the Italy 1861 chart has a slippery (and creative) Sun Neptune in Pisces, with a non-cooperative Uranus in the 7th square Saturn (doesn’t practice what it preaches); and a dependent-on-others-for-money South Node in the 8th.
The significant moments in a country’s history will tend to throw up similar key characteristics; and I tend to prefer the older charts if the data can be established.