"Our European Parliament delegation was very impressed with the level of competency, degree of integrity and international experience of the economic and financial leaders in Italy, steering the country today through its worse economic crisis," Labour MEP Edward Scicluna said at the end of an intensive two-day visit by a five-strong delegation from the European Parliament's ECON committee in Rome at the beginnning of this week.

The other members were from the main political groups in the European Parliament: Wolf Klinz, Elisa Ferreira, Burkhard Balz and Theodor Stolojan.

The delegation had meetings with the Italian Minister of Finance, Vittorio Grilli, the president of Banca d'Italia Ignazio Visco, the head of the Italian statistical agency ISTAT, Enrico Giovannini, and the heads of the competition and stock-exchange regulating authorities, Giovanni Pitruzella of the Anti-Trust Authority and Giuseppe Vegas of Consob.

On Tuesday they were welcomed by the Minister for European Affairs Enzo Moavero at Palazzo Chigi. That same afternoon the delegation took part in a joint parliamentary committee debate on the future of the Eurozone with the Senators at Palazzo Madama.

Prof. Scicluna, vice-chairman of the Committee for Economic and Financial Affairs said the aim of the visit was to report back to the European Parliament on the progess being achieved both on the fiscal consolidation and the economic policy fronts in dealing with the crisis. The democratic legitimacy of this process requires the involvement of elected representatives from both the European and national parliaments.