Sarkozy: «With Angela Merkel we pushed Berlusconi to resign, he had become pathetic»
In the book by the former French president, the reconstruction of what happened in 2011, when Berlusconi resigned and was replaced at Palazzo Chigi by Monti, while the spread shot up
Sarkozy, Merkel and Berlusconi (Ansa)
«By now it was a question of saving the third largest economy in the euro area, Italy. The interest rates that Rome had to pay to refinance its colossal debt had broken a new record, at 6.4%. We had reached the limit of sustainability of the Italian debt».
The drama of the moments experienced by EU leaders at the Cannes summit in November 2011 emerges from the book by Nicolas Sarkozy , who has published a new installment of "The time of battles". And the clear admission emerges that the then French president and the chancellor Angela Merkel were decisive in having Silvio Berlusconi (later replaced by Mario Monti at Palazzo Chigi) resign after having decreed a similar end for the Greek Papandreu.
The spark had never struck between the Knight and the leader of the Elysium, but with the passage of time and the growing difficulties the situation deteriorated, Sarkozy admits clearly today for the first time in his book.
In that dramatic November, in Cannes, it was the two leaders of Paris and Berlin who "summoned" Berlusconi: «He began to explain to us - Sarkozy recounts - that it was we who didn't understand that the Italian debt was in the hands of the Italians and that with the international markets there was no risk. He hypothesized a large national loan to ask the Italians, he was quite delusional . All this was spiced up with the jokes we had become accustomed to and which were even more out of place than usual. We witnessed, terrified, the beginning of the end of a great political career».
Then, France and Germany informed him of the decision: «It was a moment of great tension, I had to explain to him that he was the problem with Italy! Angela and I were convinced that it had become the 'risk premium' that the country had to pay to the creditors of the Italian Treasury. We honestly thought that the situation would have been less dramatic without him and his pathetic attitude . Little did he know that by the end of the month he would be abandoned and forced to leave his posts».
In the book, however, Sarkozy also pays military honors to the former prime minister: «Although our relations had deteriorated - he writes - I was sincerely saddened by his death. He will leave the memory of a great entrepreneur, a truly talented politician and a cheerful and benevolent man who loved life beyond any reasonable limit ».
(Unioneonline/L)
