From the current Italian government unfortunately comes the usual recipe we are used to in our country: confusing the market with a conspiracy and calling political interference ‘sovereignty’. It is a conditioned reflex that Italian politics cannot lose:if two companies try to do something important without its stamp, the ‘sovereignty’ alarm is immediately triggered. And the Meloni government is becoming a case study in this.

The last chapter: the use of golden power to put stakes in UniCredit’s bid for Banco BPM.
Warning: we are not talking about a foreign bank trying to buy one of our jewels. No, this is an Italian bank that wants to merge with… another Italian bank.
Yet for Palazzo Chigi, it is as if the beers had already been uncorked in Frankfurt to celebrate the takeover.
The narrative is well known: ‘Let’s defend banking sovereignty!‘ Too bad that banks in Europe are merging at a rapid pace to survive global competition, while we defend our own little garden with our teeth, only to complain if the market hail comes along. The real translation of the government message is: ‘Mergers are only good if we decide on them. And maybe when they coincide with our electoral plans or with the fate of MPS, which has now become a public bank in perpetuity‘.
In France and Germany, the state sets the rules and then lets companies measure themselves against the market. In Italy, on the other hand, politics puts its hat on everything, with the same discretion as someone who, at a wedding, stands in front of the bride and groom to look good in the photos.

The result? In the eyes of foreign investors, we seem to be a country in which every transaction can be stopped not by economic risk, but by a minister’s discontent or a meeting at Palazzo Chigi gone wrong. It is no coincidence that the European Commission has already sent a formal letter asking for explanations. If the EU decided to open proceedings, a press conference with the tricolour flag in the background would not be enough to restore credibility.

Meanwhile, Italian banks remain smaller than their French, German and Spanish competitors, and therefore more fragile. But at least – the sovereignists will say – ‘they are ours’.
As if in a world championship the important thing is to have an all-Italian team, even if it relegates to Serie B.

Golden power is used to protect strategic assets from hostile takeovers. Using it against domestic operations is like wearing body armour to open the mailbox: scenic, but useless.

If we want strong banks, we must let them grow, not keep them in a political enclosure. Because true sovereignty is not to say ‘no’ all the time, but to put Italian companies in a position to compete on equal terms with those of other major European countries. Everything else is golden propaganda.