BERLIN (AFP) – Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella said yesterday in Berlin that the European Union (EU) must have corporate “champions”, speaking at a time when Milan-based UniCredit was making moves on Germany’s Commerzbank.
Kicking off a two-day state visit to Germany, Mattarella declined to comment on “concrete events” but backed efforts to create European heavyweights.
The key players now in a number of “decisive sectors” were “largely from other countries, other continents, other areas”, Mattarella said at a joint press conference with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
“Therefore, it is essential that European champions grow.”
The emergence of European companies that could hold their own with global competition was an “essential objective”, the Italian president said.
UniCredit has built a position in Commerzbank equivalent to about 21 per cent of the Frankfurt-based bank, Germany’s second-biggest lender, since the start of September.
This has fuelled speculation that UniCredit aims to take over its German rival in a deal that could kick off consolidation in the fractured European banking sector.
UniCredit’s surprise approach for Commerzbank has however met a fierce response in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz has denounced UniCredit’s “unfriendly” behaviour.
Commerzbank itself has vowed to block any takeover attempt. UniCredit acquired 4.5 per cent of its stake from the German government itself, which Berlin had built up during the global financial crisis of 2007-2008.
The German government still holds a 12 per cent stake, second only behind UniCredit, but has said it does not plan to sell more shares for now.
Mattarella said Germany and Italy had “the ability and responsibility to push for the growth of the (European) Union”.
One area in which action was needed was the completion of the EU’s banking union, Mattarella said, alongside greater cooperation on defence and speeding European-level decision making.
“A big single currency of great importance in the world must have a financial system behind it that is complete, not partial,” Mattarella said.
