Monti names his replacement as economy minister

ROME – Agence France-Presse

AP photo

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has stepped down as finance minister to be replaced by the current deputy minister Vittorio Grilli but signaled he would keep a tight grip on economic policy.

The government said on July 11 in a statement that Monti would preside over a new committee for economic and financial policy that will include Grilli, Economic Development Minister Corrado Passera and Bank of Italy governor Ignazio Visco.

A former European commissioner and economics professor, Monti replaced Silvio Berlusconi at a time of financial market panic in November 2011 when he also took the post of interim finance minister in a bid to reassure investors.

Monti’s leadership in the debt crisis and his radical program of spending cuts and structural reforms are seen as having saved Italy from disaster and uncertainty over what will happen when he leaves is worrying investors.

Grilli is a former economics professor at Yale University in the United States and a graduate from the prestigious Bocconi University in Milan, also the alma mater of Monti who later became the institution’s dean.

Before his appointment to Monti’s cabinet in November, Grilli was director general of the Italian Treasury.
He previously worked on a major privatization program in the 1990s.