[1] On 5 August 2011, during the dramatic crisis of European banks, the former governor of ECB, Jean Claude Trichet, together with Mario Draghi, wrote a "secret" letter to the Italian government, at the time led by Silvio Berlusconi.
[...] Abbiamo deciso di non fornire accesso al documento richiesto, poiché la divulgazione recherebbe pregiudizio alla tutela dell'interesse pubblico.
Nevertheless, in a political confrontation between Berlusconi, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy on 22 October 2011, these measures were considered insufficient, in a meeting that was "defined in the following days as tense and extremely hard towards the government of Rome by Valentino Valentini, the personal adviser in international relationship of Italian Prime Minister.
Merkel and Sarkozy, which evidently did not tolerate excuses about current difficult situation of Italy, pushed on Prime Minister, so that he announced strong and concrete measures, and to apply in order to demonstrate that his government is serious about debt problem.
[16] Allegedly, on October 26, 2011, Napolitano refused to sign a decree containing additional economic measures that would have strengthened the Italian government's position amidst financial market turmoil and an EU meeting in Nice.