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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Vice-President of Italian Senate has a go at 'Mr Nobody' Olli Rehn

Maurizio Gasparri, a senior member of Silvio Berlusconi's PdL party and a Vice-President of the Italian Senate, yesterday launched one of the toughest verbal attacks on a member of the European Commission we can think of over the past months, if not years. His target was EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, and here's what Mr Gasparri said,
It's time to stop it with the 'corporals of the day' such as this Olli Rehn, a Mr Nobody who comes to Italy acting as a supervisor. He should rather meditate on the disasters that people like him have caused by destroying Europe. Thick bureaucrats who kill the peoples [of Europe] and make the continent die because of China’s unfair competition and [their] ruinous economic policies. This Rehn is persona non grata. He should take a plane, go back home and pay as many taxes he likes.
But what prompted this rant? Very simple. During a hearing in the Italian parliament earlier in the day, Rehn had noted that the abolition of a controversial property tax on first homes – one of Berlusconi's flagship electoral pledges – was not in line with the European Commission's economic policy recommendations to Italy, and cast doubts over the country's ability to meet the deficit targets agreed with Brussels.

Interestingly, Mr Gasparri's critical reaction to Rehn's remarks was not the only one of the day either, though arguably the most colourful. Stefano Fassina, Italy's centre-left Deputy Economy Minister, also invited Rehn to "think about the mistakes the European Commission has made in all these years instead of continuing to give us lessons." Another sign that 'austerity fatigue' in Italy is also mounting among a number of top politicians, not just the citizens.   

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well it is a start, it's about time that the elected politicians of the previously free nations of the eussr put an unelected failed politician in his place, the best step would be to save millions by getting rid of the commission entirely.

Rollo said...

What has Mr Rehn ever done to allow him to make comment on economic affairs? The organisation he 'heads' is responsible for the disintegration of Europe and endless misery in half the continent.

Freedom Lover said...

This is just a start. Nothing more. Much better would be to pass parliamentary motions of "No confidence" against whichever EU Commissioner(s) is/are currently out of favour. And then threaten to veto all veto-able future EU legislation, & refuse to pay any contributions to the EU, until satisfaction has been achieved. Although the EU Commission would sulk, the other EU member states would far rather lose commissioners than EU members - especially major ones like Italy.

Anonymous said...

Sticks and stones ...

Means nothing.

Only action -- in Italy's case, quitting the Eurozone and then the EUSSR -- means anything.

The rest is just noise.

Rik said...

Hardly a member of the Olli fanclub myself. To say it very very friendly I consider the guy mediocre at best.
However he is still in a completely different league from people like Gasparri, who is a poster child for a outdated, corrupt, dysfunctional, unsustainable (etc etc) political and social economic system.

Most commentors clearly donot like Olli, but please donot ignore reality completely. The Italians messed the thing up themselves, to a level that only very bad tasting medicine helps. Olli might not be the most competent doctor but the mess is purely homemade by people as Gasparri and the other bunch of jokers. And effectively by the italian people who voted for them and did very little against the now failed system while it sort of working.