Monti hails Rajoy, smokes peace pipe with Gates
Spanish labour-market reforms a possible example says PM
Sunday, 26 February 2012
23 February, 19:21
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(ANSA) - Rome, February 23 - Italian Premier Mario Monti kept centre stage of international economics Thursday by praising the labour-market reforms of visiting Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy and holding a high-profile 'peace-pipe' meeting with Bill Gates.
Monti, whose government is conducting an uneasy debate with unions about freeing up the labour market to help stoke growth, said the sweeping reforms enacted by his Spanish counterpart might set an example Italy could follow.
"Italy and Spain see eye-to-eye on major issues and we're thinking of starting contacts with experts on a possible joint approach to (eurozone) problems," said Monti, who like Rajoy is trying to steer Italy away from debt-crisis contagion.
The Spanish premier has earned plaudits for ramming through reforms in the face of strident opposition from unions who say they could spell more jobs lost than job created.
Monti, too, is aiming to make easier firing rules a linchpin of a comprehensive reform of the labour and welfare systems, bringing more women into the workplace while making a dent in sky-high youth-unemployment levels.
"We have a lot to learn" from the Spanish experience, he told reporters after "cordial" talks with Rajoy, whose reforms are targeting even higher jobless rates among Spanish youth.
The two leaders also said domestic service sectors across the European Union should be freed up to boost growth for all EU members.
Rajoy said Spain, Italy and "at least" seven other EU members had signed a letter calling for more pan-EU growth policies. Italy and Spain's youth-unemployment crises will top the agenda of a European Council meeting at the beginning of March, Rajoy said. He said EU-mandated short-term fiscal demands, in economies heading for recession, risked posing distractions to reformist governments who, as well as putting their financial houses in order, are focused on "conducting measures aimed at the future". Monti added he hoped Iran would return to "real negotiations" on its controversial nuclear program.
After his talks with Rajoy, Monti went on to a shorter and reportedly amicable meeting with Gates, with whom he famously butted horns when he was European competition commissioner in the 1990s.
Neither Gates nor Monti commented before or after the one-hour meeting but observers were confident they had put their past differences behind them.
The Microsoft wizard was fined almost 500 million euros by Monti eight years ago as the then competition commissioner started a tussle that was to result in even bigger raps for anti-competitive practices.
With his staunch defence of free-market principles, also in another headline-grabbing case against General Electric, The Economist magazine said "many American businessmen regarded Mario Monti as the corporate equivalent of Saddam Hussein" - as the premier himself recalled when taking up the reins of government in November, denying he could be seen as a poster boy for international financial powerhouses.
Gates, who has increasingly turned to philanthropy after stepping back from the forefront of Microsoft development, denied reports that he was a possible candidate to lead the World Bank.
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