Do not pass Go
THE latest gloss on the European monet- ary scene reaches me from Florence, where I have an attic flat with five Portuguese young ladies in it. This temporary and businesslike arrangement (when I move in they move out) has come under threat. There is trouble with the gas bill. It is paid by standing order from an account in a local bank, and the account is running lower than the gas. The young ladies pay rent, but I cannot ask them to pay the rent into the bank account. That would be a grave breach of Italian exchange control, and could find us all living in the Mutate jail — rent-free, admittedly. Instead, I must top up the Florentine bank with a draft from my British bank account, and, when I finally get to Florence, take the rent round to Vivole and try to spend it on ice-creams. I cannot send it back to my British bank, because to send or take money (above a fixed amount) out of Italy would be another breach of exchange control, and I should be back in the Murate. Britain, to be fair, propped up the pound with an equally daft set of rules
between 1939 and 1979, and Italy has not yet felt that the lira can do without them. They are supposed to go, soon, as part of 1992 and all that, and perhaps they will. They make our Treasury's point that be- longing to a European Monetary System is not at all the same as belonging to an open market in money. The Italians used to say that exchange controls were essential for their EMS membership — but more and more the EMS itself looks too tidy and inflexible and parochial for the Europe we now see.
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