ROME (Reuters) – An Italian minister and co-founder of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party sarcastically took aim at the European Central Bank, pointing to how its policy moves taken on Thursday were hitting Italian markets.
The ECB hiked its deposit rate by 50 basis points and its President Christine Lagarde told reporters rates would continue to rise “significantly” and at a steady pace.
“I don’t understand the Christmas present President Lagarde has decided to give Italy,” Defence Minister Guido Crosetto tweeted alongside a chart showing a widening yield spread between Italian and German government bonds.
The BTP-Bund spread closed the day at 206 basis points, up sharply from 191 the day before.
“For anyone who hadn’t understood the effect of (ECB) decisions taken and communicated with superficiality and detachment,” Crosetto said in a second tweet beside a chart showing the plunge in the price of Italian government bond futures.
Alongside its rate hike the ECB on Thursday also laid out plans to drain cash from the financial system as part of a dogged fight against runaway inflation.
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This hit the euro zone’s weakest borrowers, such as the Italian government, which have come to rely on the central bank as a major buyer.
(Reporting By Gavin Jones; Editing by Keith Weir)