Even as Italy’s parliament prepares to give its final approval on Wednesday to the centre-right government’s austerity budget after weeks of tortuous changes, investors are considering what else Rome needs to do to halt a potentially mortal debt spiral.
Local media are dubbing a central part of the current plan “Britannia-2” – the sequel to a meeting hosted in June 1992 by UK institutional investors aboard Queen Elizabeth’s yacht, at which Mario Draghi, then a young head of Treasury and from this November the governor of the European Central Bank, presented Italy’s – and Europe’s – largest privatisation programme to date.
Giulio Tremonti, finance minister, is reported to be preparing to meet Italian and foreign investors, including representatives of sovereign wealth funds, in Rome this month to discuss Italy’s next fire sale.