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The Treasury will issue new economic targets on Wednesday providing the framework for a budget in which Meloni will attempt to keep her tax-cutting promises while also lowering the fiscal deficit. "This budget is Meloni's first real economic test since she came to power last October," said Tim Jones, euro zone analyst for market consultancy firm Medley Advisors. Meloni has much less room for manoeuvre than when she hiked deficit targets in her first budget a year ago. Episodes targeting airlines and investors in Italy's 307- billion-euro ($326.74 billion) bad loan market have followed a similar pattern. Meloni subsequently said no measures were planned regarding non-performing loans, but her party's proposal is still before parliament and uncertainty persists.

Persons: Giorgia Meloni, Meloni, Tim Jones, she's, Morgan Stanley, Reuters.G Rome, Roberto Perotti, Meloni's, Valentina Za, Francesco Canepa, Giuseppe Fonte, Sara Rossi, Gianluca Semeraro, Ed Osmond, Giselda Organizations: Treasury, Advisors, European Central Bank, Reuters, Ryanair, Milan's, Bank of, ECB, Thomson Locations: ROME, Italy, Greece, Rome, Italian, Italy's, Brussels, EU, Milan

☆ Italy has frozen Russian oligarchs' assets worth $2.5 billion
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ROME, July 4 (Reuters) - Italy has frozen Russian oligarchs' assets valued at around 2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) following the invasion of Ukraine last year, the country's central bank said on Tuesday. Italy seized assets -- including bank accounts, luxury villas, yachts and cars -- as part of the European Union's sanctions against the Kremlin and its backers. UIF Director Enzo Serata added that financial holdings worth around 330 million euros, linked to 80 individuals, had been frozen as part of the sanctions regime. Some of the oligarchs targeted by the measures have filed legal appeals, including Russian-Uzbek metals and telecoms tycoon Alisher Usmanov. In April, an Italian court referred to the EU Court of Justice a decision on whether to maintain a freeze on his assets, worth more than 80 million euros.

Persons: Enzo Serata, Alisher Usmanov, Alvise, Keith Weir Organizations: Kremlin, Bank of Italy's, Thomson Locations: Italy, Ukraine, Como, Sardinia, Tuscany, Russian

☆ Italy's Poste CEO says firms to use balance sheet in Eurovita rescue
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MILAN, May 4 (Reuters) - Italian banks and insurers that are being called upon to rescue struggling life group Eurovita will help by using their balance sheet, Poste Italiane's CEO said on Thursday, without elaborating. The Poste Italiane chief executive said all the main Italian insurers and banks distributing products by Cinven-owned Eurovita were working on a possible solution. "Everybody would use their balance sheet instead of funding a recapitalisation," he said, adding he could not explain more. Italian authorities have taken over management of Eurovita and are working on brokering a rescue after strong-arming Cinven into pumping 100 million euros of capital into the insurer. For insurers that rely on banks and financial advisers for their distribution, redemptions totalled 119% of premiums.

☆ ECB must avoid unnecessary rise in real interest rates - Visco
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

ROME, Feb 11 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank (ECB) must avoid pushing real interest rates too high, given the level of private and public debt in the euro area, a top Italian policymaker said on Saturday. The ECB has raised interest rates by 3 percentage points since July and promised a 50 basis-point hike for March. "Today, disinflation is obviously needed, but given the levels of private and public debts that prevail in the euro area, we must be careful to avoid engineering an unnecessary and excessive rise in real interest rates," Visco told the Warwick Economics Summit. Politicians in Italy have expressed concerns about the impact of rising interest rates given the country's huge debts. Visco said ECB rates must continue to rise "in a progressive but measured way, on the basis of the incoming data and their use in the assessment of the inflation outlook".

☆ Morning Bid: Hot air
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Still, stocks rallied and bond yields fell as markets priced in lower rates. Now, it appears that some of these expectations were a load of hot air. The U.S. jobs data showed the unemployment rate hit more than a 53-1/2-year low of 3.4%. U.S. stock futures traded lower and FTSE futures indicated a weaker start for British stocks (.FTSE), which vaulted to a record high on Friday. European index futures also traded lower.

ECB Governing Council member Ignazio Visco, who is also the Bank of Italy's governor, warned that an excessive tightening would have "serious implications" for economic activity and financial stability. He reiterated that he saw this as a risk that carried the same weight as the danger of a too gradual tightening. "The policy tightening can now continue with the due caution, carefully assessing the implications for the economy and inflation prospects of the measures that have already been adopted," Visco told the annual conference of Italy's Assiom-Forex financial markets association. The ECB has kept its options open about subsequent steps after March, raising doubts among investors about its resolve to keep raising rates to tame inflation. Banking supervisors are monitoring specifically credit risks but also liquidity and refinancing risks, Visco said, adding there was a danger that higher rates fed into banks' funding costs more rapidly than in the past.

☆ Bank of Italy clears Benetton-Blackstone's bid for Atlantia
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The logo of Italian infrastructure group Atlantia is seen outside its headquarters in Rome, Italy, October 5, 2020. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File PhotoMILAN, Sept 21 (Reuters) - The Bank of Italy has cleared a multi-billion euro buyout bid for infrastructure group Atlantia (ATL.MI) proposed by the Benetton family and U.S. fund Blackstone , the two bidders said in a statement on Wednesday. read moreThe bid heralds a new phase for Atlantia which sold its domestic motorway unit earlier this year to draw a line under a political dispute sparked by a deadly bridge collapse in 2018. The Benetton family, which already owns 33% of Atlantia, and Blackstone need to get the final go ahead from Italy's market watchdog Consob before they can launch the bid on the stock market. The proposed bid needed Bank of Italy's greenlight because the central bank oversees some activities of Atlantia's digital toll payment unit Telepass.

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