My aspiration is not to be loved. It is that my government be respected and credible.

I believe that reforms will not really take hold if they do not gradually come into the culture of the people.

If Spain goes under, Italy will come under even more scrutiny.

In the area of macroeconomic policies, I think we'll see more centralization, like in the budgetary sphere.

This is certainly not the first case in which a merger approved in one place hasn't gone through in the other. There was a case last year where the merger between two EU companies was approved here and blocked in the U.S.

Italy needed structural reforms to become more competitive.

It is very unusual for a country to ask guys who are not politicians to come and run the country.