Italy agrees to IMF/EU monitoring reform progress-EU source

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Reuters

Nov 4 (Reuters) - Italy has agreed to have the IMF and the EU monitor its progress in meeting targets on pension, labour and structural reforms that were agreed with EU leaders last week, a senior EU source said on Friday.

"We need to make sure there is credibility with Italy's targets -- that it is going to meet them. We decided to have the IMF involved on the monitoring, using their own methodology, and the Italians say they can live with that," he said.

"Italy has no problem with surveillance at all, even with the IMF being involved," he said, adding the EU Commission and IMF would each report on how Italy was meeting its targets.

He said a precautionary credit line was not seen to be a credible option for Italy, where one of the main problems has been market confidence in its plans.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/04/g20-italy-imf-idUSL6E7M409I20111104

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Additional Reuters link here :

(Reuters) - Italy, under fierce pressure from financial markets and European peers, has agreed to have the IMF and the EU monitor its progress with long delayed reforms of pensions, labor markets and privatization, senior EU sources said on Friday.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, his government close to collapse after more loyalists defected on Thursday, agreed to the step in late-night talks with euro zone leaders and U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Cannes, France.

The Italian move came after Greece stepped back from a proposed referendum that could have triggered its exit from the euro area and agreed to seek national consensus in support of a 130 billion euro ($178 billion) new bailout program.

"We need to make sure there is credibility with Italy's targets -- that it is going to meet them. We decided to have the IMF involved on the monitoring, using their own methodology, and the Italians say they can live with that," one EU source said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/04/us-g-idUSTRE7A20E920111104

[DCBob]

1. Sounds like everyone is getting in line.

they may actually get through this mess without causing the world economy to collapse.

[dipsydoodle]

2. I'm not too sure

the Italian's will be very impressed with Berlusconi's gesture. I reckon his days are numbered in days now.

[DCBob]

3. No doubt...

but getting rid of Berlusconi may be necessary and a good thing in the grand scheme of things.

[fasttense]

4. The IMF's new motto: Austerity for the working class, luxury for the idle rich.

I'm sure decimating demand in Italy and Greece will not improve their economies.

Just look at how defaulting did NOT hurt Iceland.

[Bosonic]

6. Correct me if I'm wrong

But I believe that in the case of Iceland, it was the national banks which defaulted not Iceland itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932011_Icelandic_financial_crisis

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_bankruptcy#Examples_of_national_bankruptcy for recent examples of sovereign debt defaulting, Argentina and/or Zimbabwe will be better comparisons.

[dipsydoodle]

7. Defaulting did NOT hurt Iceland

aside from soaring unemployment, rising prices and the fact that they want to be in the EU but can't until they pay back the UK and Holland who would meanwhile veto their membership application.

[xsirdd]

5. Finally an "Ocelot's art-change"

So, from the music of Threepenny Opera, The Shark (...no, is a keyboard mystake: The Providence's Fish is allright) has moved to the image of Georges Grosz's "pension-caretaker" painting!