Italy facing dismemberment after ECB tax hikes - Tremonti at risk!

The unelected and increasingly ludicrous President of the EU Council, Herman Von Rompuy, issued a press statement on the Italian revised austerity programme this evening, as follows:

"I spoke to the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi today following the adoption of the financial package in Italy yesterday. I fully support and welcome the timely and rigorous financial measures. I underlined that these approved measures are crucially important not only for Italy but for the Eurozone as a whole."

Reuters analyses the increasingly impossible plight of the Italian Finance Minister, Giulio Tremonti, in a report, linked here. A taste of the critique:

The latest package is already being criticized by economists.

Tito Boeri, economics professor at Milan's Bocconi University, said he was "very disappointed" by the plan and was concerned that markets would take a similar view.

"There are no structural spending cuts, nothing in the near term on pensions, no reforms that can help the economy, and instead we have a series of tax hikes that will have exactly the opposite effect," he said.

In news conferences and parliamentary appearances in the last few days, a crestfallen Tremonti made no attempt to disguise the extent to which policy was now being dictated by the ECB.

Make no mistake about what has been underway during the past few days. The democracy of a large European Nation, has been removed and the people rendered powerless. The Italian Parliament has sixty days to pass this package into law. The Italian MPs now increasingly appear as the last defence between the people of Europe and tyrannical EU oppression, undertaken purely to save a common currency few now even want. I would have preferred sturdier gladiators myself, but Britain's Government has already surrendered, see my posing immediately below.