Neither Spain nor Italy had applied for a troika program, but that did not stop the ECB from demanding huge cuts to government spending and increased taxation. In the Italian case, Trichet and Draghi called for the privatization of local public services, a proposal that had recently been decisively rejected in a nationwide referendum.8 The ECB also called for dramatic changes to labor market policy, infringing on rights of Italian and Spanish trade unions. Such changes were necessary, the ECB insisted, to cut unemployment and increase growth. It was a blatant attempt to shift the balance of
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