Facing €3.5bn in fines from the EU for failing to tighten its fiscal belt, the far-right League which is part of the ruling coalition has adopted a strategy which "is to offer EU leaders a choice: reform the EU treaties to enable fiscal expansion and allow the European Central Bank to act as lender-of-last-resort; or face the consequences", writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph.

Fresh from an emphatic European election victory in which his party swept up nearly 40% of the vote in Italy, League leader and deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini struck a defiant tone, saying "I don't govern a country on its knees".

His answer is to revive the threat of introducing so-called "mini-BOTs", named after Italy's short-term Treasury bills, which would act as a form of parallel currency in competition with the euro.

Reuters says the Treasury "would print billions of euros of non-interest-bearing, tradeable securities which could then be used by recipients to pay taxes and buy any services or goods provided by the state, including, for example, petrol at stations run by state-controlled oil company ENI".

Claudio Borghi, Lega chairman of Italy's house budget committee and long-time critic of the euro, said the plan for minibot treasury notes is written into the coalition's solemn "contract" and will be activated to flank the tax reform package.

"It is a way to mobilise credit that is badly needed and put money into circulation," he said.

"This scrip paper creates parallel liquidity - akin to what [former Greek finance minister] Yanis Varoufakis wanted to do in Greece - to be used to pay €50bn of arrears to state contractors and households", says Evans-Pritchard.

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That which can't stand must fall. So just do it already.