FX168 Financial News Agency (North America) reported that, amid a global surge in gold prices and ongoing pressure from Italy’s massive debt, lawmakers from the right-wing coalition government led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are pushing to explicitly include in the budget bill that the gold reserves managed by the Bank of Italy “belong to the Italian people.” Analysts warn that this move could pave the way for potential future sales of gold by the government, thereby undermining market confidence in Italy’s financial stability.
(Source: Financial Times)
According to data from the Bank of Italy, Italy currently holds approximately 2,452 tons of gold, ranking third globally, behind only the United States and Germany. With the recent sharp rise in global gold prices, its market value has now approached 285 billion euros.
The Bank of Italy stated that these gold reserves are part of its official foreign exchange reserves. “These reserves enhance confidence in Italy’s financial system and the stability of the euro, while also serving as a guarantee for the Bank of Italy to fulfill its public functions,” the central bank said in a statement.
However, lawmakers from Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party are attempting to insert a new clause into the upcoming budget law, declaring that “the gold reserves managed and held by the Bank of Italy belong to the Italian people.”
Lucio Malan, a senator from the Brothers of Italy party and leader of the parliamentary group, stated: “We need to make it clear – this gold is the fruit of the people’s labor, and these reserves have always been the property of the Italian people.”
In recent years, Italy’s right-wing has repeatedly raised questions about the ownership of the gold. More than a decade ago, following a restructuring of the Bank of Italy, financial institutions, including private banks, became nominal shareholders of the central bank, sparking long-standing doubts from right-wing parties about the legality of the central bank’s gold holdings.
After this structural adjustment, the Brothers of Italy party repeatedly pushed for legislation to clarify that the central bank’s gold belongs to the state, but all previous attempts ended in failure.
As early as 2014, before becoming prime minister, Meloni criticized the so-called “loss of monetary sovereignty” in a parliamentary speech, emphasizing that “under no circumstances” should Italy’s gold be touched by the “new masters of the central bank.”
In 2019, when the far-right ‘League’ party proposed to make the central bank the ‘custodian’ of gold reserves, the European Central Bank (ECB) warned that transferring these reserves from the central bank’s balance sheet to national ownership would circumvent EU treaty provisions prohibiting monetary financing. Subsequently, the coalition government of the League and the Five Star Movement collapsed, halting progress on the matter.
On Monday, the ECB stated in a press release that it had been consulted by Italian authorities regarding the draft amendments and is ‘currently examining the matter.’
This debate has made some economists uneasy. They warn that if the law confirms gold as the property of the government or the people, any future administration could more easily sell part of its gold reserves to repay public debt or raise funds for underfunded sectors such as healthcare and education.
Salvatore Rossi, former general manager of the Bank of Italy, wrote last month in La Stampa: ‘Systematically reducing gold reserves to alleviate public finances is akin to telling the world we have reached a point where selling gold is necessary to keep the country running.’
Maran emphasized that the government has no intention of selling or transferring Italy’s gold reserves, about half of which are currently held in the United States. However, he insisted that clarifying the public ownership of gold holds principled significance.
He said, ‘In Italy, every property, car, and boat is registered. So why should an asset worth nearly €300 billion not be clearly recorded?’
Claudio Borghi, a senator from the League party who has long advocated clarifying gold ownership, argued that defining gold ownership under the current equity structure of the central bank corrects an ‘anomaly.’
The opposition Democratic Party criticized Fratelli d’Italia for exploiting the gold issue to divert public attention from rising living costs and other pressing social challenges.
Antonio Misiani, head of the economic department of the Democratic Party, stated, ‘Italians expect answers on wages, businesses, investments, and the healthcare system. But Fratelli d’Italia keeps recycling old issues, waving the nostalgic right-wing banner.’