A bill of exchange is wandering along Via XX Settembre: it is tied to 300 billioneuro more euro less, than at the moment they are not counted in the state budget. It is a monstrous figure inherited from the years of Covid. It’s the horror film that the Ministry of Economy hopes will never be broadcast.
It all began in 2020, in the dramatic days of the pandemic, when Italy closed, the country stopped and the system risked collapsing. The imperative is to prevent the crash. The Giallorossi government of Giuseppe Conte launches exceptional measures with a support provision that ranges from large businesses to small VAT numbers. It is the Liquidity decree: the public guarantee on three hundred billion in loans to businesses which are the shield with which they intend to protect companies and their workers.
Banks are asked to intervene, providing the cash needed for the rescue operation. And the State provides coverage through its structures: on the one hand the Mediocredito Centrale, emanation of Invitalia; on the other Sacethe insurance-financial group that is directly controlled by the Ministry of Economy. The loans are at a subsidized rate and a portion of 10% is expected to be non-repayable.
In this emergency phase many previous debts are restructured, because the interest rate is much more advantageous. And credit institutions favor this process, because the coverage of exposures is passed onto the shoulders of the State. The mechanism thus produces an effect: it causes it to rise the costs of the decreeThat increase exponentially. But since there is Covid, the phenomenon is not considered a priority. The banks thus fulfill their role and record everything in the balance sheet.
Four years later, however, the knot begins to get tangled, because credit institutions are starting to wonder when they will regain possession of the allocated liquidity. It is true that, thanks to the high interest rates of recent times, they have made considerable profits. But if the large “system” banks can move their timing forward without many problems, the smaller ones are showing the first signs of difficulty and must take this into account in their balance sheet. Therefore a red light came on: Would the state structures involved in the rescue operation in 2020 be able to meet the requests?
This is the question that authoritative government representatives have asked themselves. «And not from today – they say – but from when we took office». It is not known at the moment how much the effect of the decree on the public coffers could be, and whether the reserves set aside by Mediocredito Centrale and Sace are sufficient to cover any missed payments. It is certain that in 2023 the general default rate – that is, the parameter based on which the probability that a debtor is unable to repay a loan is measured – has remained below two and a half percent. But this is a general figure, which therefore does not focus on the money allocated through the Liquidity decree.
«The problem – they add from the executive – is that in the meantime the previous debts have come due. And if the entrepreneurs are unable to cope, the banks register the credit by turning it over to the State.” Why, if Mcc and Sace were unable to cover, ultimately it would be up to the Economy to pay: except that at that point the debt should be budgeted. And the ghost of the bill would materialize in Via XX Settembre, where – they say – «Giorgetti doesn’t know which way to turn». The era of free is over, if there ever really was.
 accounts of the Ministry of Economy){kind=link}