ROME: A proposal by a center-right coalition, leading polls ahead of a March 4 election, to issue small-denomination sovereign bonds would damage public accounts and curb economic growth, Economy Minister
Championed by the eurosceptic League and backed by former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the bonds would be issued by the Treasury to those owed money by the state.
Padoan, who has served as a technocrat in a government run by the center-left Democratic Party (PD), told RAI state TV the scheme was “a plan to circulate a disguised parallel currency”.
He is running for the first time as a PD candidate in the Tuscan town of Siena, where his rival is the architect of the currency scheme — the League’s economics chief Claudio Borghi.
Pier Carlo Padoan said on Thursday.
