European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde steps in every time a government attempts to implement monetary policy. The centralized power now has the final say, sorry, but sovereignty is not an option for European Union members. Italy proposed declaring gold an asset of the people, but Lagarde has found a way to prevent that from happening.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s ruling coalition stated that the Bank of Italy’s 2,452 metric tons of gold reserves, estimated to be worth $300 billion, is the property of the people. Senator Lucio Malan of Fratelli d’Italia asserted that gold held by the central bank belongs to the people during the 2026 budget review. “Not even the Bank of Italy can act unilaterally with the gold,” Senator Malan said in an interview, adding that the purpose is “to safeguard the gold reserves from future misuse.”
Now, the fact that this proposal even arose is a sign that the government is desperate. Italy knows it is under fiscal stress and people are losing faith in fiat currency. The government wants to control those gold reserves to hedge against itself. If Italy succeeds in re-writing control over gold reserves, it sets a precedent across the eurozone that gold could be its way to bail out budgets. “For the people” equates to “for the social welfare system,” as politicians could then say they need to liquidate reserves to pay for services that will be provided to the people.
“The Italian authorities are invited to reconsider the draft provision, also with a view to preserving the independent performance of the basic ESCB-related tasks of the Banca d’Italia under the Treaty,” the ECB said in a formal statement. Gold reserves are to be managed by national central banks, and the ECB believes there is no “concrete purpose” for transferring legal ownership. “The Bank of Italy is no different from any other national central bank,” Lagarde said. “This is not a trivial issue, because Italy is the third largest holder of gold among the central banks.”
That gold belongs to the bureaucrats in Brussels, or at least, that is the line of thinking among the ECB. Europe is due for a panic cycle in 2026 and 2032. Centralized government will be the catalyst for the European Union failing. The sovereign debt crisis is unavoidable at this point. Europe wants war as an excuse to default without the people turning on their own governments. Gold will rise as a store of value because the underlying confidence in the monetary system and government is failing. The ECB wants to protect itself, as do individual member nations who now realize they are unable to shield themselves from the collective of Brussels as everyone must perish on this sinking ship.