ROME, Feb 13 — The Italian government has no intention of selling the Bank of Italy’s gold reserves to plug budget holes, a prominent lawmaker of the ruling League party said today.

“We do not want to sell a gram (of gold),” Claudio Borghi, chairman of the lower-house budget committee and the League’s economics spokesman, said in a interview with state-owned television RAI.

The League has drafted a law proposal which would eventually allow the government to sell the country’s gold reserves if there were also a change to the constitution — a long and complicated legislative process.

Borghi has already tabled a bill intended to establish that the gold is the property of the state rather than of the Bank of Italy, a point which is disputed in Italy.

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The idea that Italy could sell part of its gold reserves to fill budget shortfalls has sparked outcry in Germany, Daniel Gros, a German economist and Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, said on the same TV programme.

In an exchange with Borghi, Gros added: “Some conservative financial circles believe Italy is on the edge of collapse and see its gold reserves as the only available collateral in case of a bailout”.

Italy is the world’s third-largest holder of gold reserves, behind the United States and Germany, with 2,451.8 tonnes as of last year, according to the World Gold Council.

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In 1976, 543 tonnes of gold bullion were used by the Bank of Italy as collateral for a loan from the German central bank. — Reuters