Italian Town Prints Its Own Currency to Fight Austerity Measures

Time
August 31, 2011

If you’re a small-town mayor unhappy with your national government, there’s one thing you can do: declare independence and start issuing currency with your face on it. Just ask the mayor (or should we say, prince?) of Filettino, Italy.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Italy is right in the middle of the larger sovereign debt crisis going on in Europe, which is shaking the confidence of markets across the globe. The Italian government has issued a number of austerity measures to get its books in order, including plans to merge the governments of towns with less than 1,000 people to cut costs. That’s 1,963 towns total.

But Luca Sellari, the mayor of Filettino, Italy, is fighting back. Rather than give into the national government’s demands, Sellari wants his central Italian town of 598 to become an independent state under a monarch. Who would be the monarch, you ask? Well, Sellari, of course.

“It’s everyone’s dream to be a prince,” he told The New York Times.

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This article was posted: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 1:36 pm

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