Italy wants other European nations to pay its unemployment bills

Italy to propose Eurozone joint unemployment insurance scheme

La Repubblica reports that Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan will later this month submit to his Eurozone counterparts a draft plan for a joint unemployment insurance scheme. Eurozone countries would contribute gradually to the tune of 0.5% of their GDP – meaning that the common pot would eventually amount to around €50bn. The scheme could be tapped by any Eurozone country experiencing a sudden increase in unemployment or a slowdown in employment growth compared to the bloc’s average.

The socialists running most governments in Europe (they are all socialists in policy if not in name) keep coming up with more schemes to make all of Europe pay for their destructive economic policies. What reason will Italy or any other Eurozone country have to make its economy more robust and allow its people to work cooperatively with others, if it can draw upon a Europe-wide unemployment fund? I can’t see Germany or some other more economically successful European nations agreeing to this harebrained proposal.