The Siena grand coalition for MPS

First, a Siena city council meeting devoted entirely to the future of MPS, and now the establishment of a permanent institutional forum bringing together local councillors and Tuscan MPs. There could not be greater consensus between the majority and opposition forces in defending MPS against the takeover bid by Intesa Sanpaolo and Unipol-Bper.

Tying together this extremely broad spectrum is the PD president for Tuscany, Eugenio Giani, who has also called on the government not to remain neutral in this contest, but to make its stake (4.8 per cent) count when the bank’s shareholders’ meeting is held to approve the counter-move devised by Luigi Lovaglio – namely, the dual bid for Banco BPM and Banca Generali. It matters little that the PD leader, Elly Schlein, has stated that bank mergers must follow market dynamics rather than political decisions. The Democrats are currently a two-faced Janus: on the one hand, they support the Meloni government’s stance against the ‘break-up’ of Siena, whilst on the other, they invoke the free market. But it is clear that the battle over MPS is also being fought in electoral terms in a region such as Tuscany, where the right is seeking to wrest ground from the left.

All participants are now taking their seats at the permanent round table: alongside Giani, the President of the Province of Siena, Agnese Carletti (PD), the Mayor of Siena, Nicoletta Fabio (centre-right), MPs Simona Bonafé, Marco Simiani and Silvio Franceschelli (PD), Francesco Michelotti (FdI) and MEP Francesco Torselli (FdI). A fine example of civic spirit, one might say, but also a melting pot of contradictions. What, indeed, is to be made of the silence of the (PD) President of Emilia-Romagna, Michele De Pascale? The region’s left-wing co-ops are funding the Intesa-Unipol takeover, yet the local bank BPER will have to accept that the new group’s headquarters will be in Siena, as Unipol’s chairman, Carlo Cimbri, has made clear. And yet, the PD in Emilia remains silent and lets things take their course. A different approach.