ROME- Borsa Italiana will become a central component of Euronext's network of stock exchanges and its MTS bond trading platform can play a major role in raising money for the European Union's recovery fund, the CEO of the pan-European stock exchange said on Sunday.

Euronext, which runs bourses in Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin among others, in October clinched a $5 billion purchase of the Milan bourse from the London Stock Exchange.

"It is our intention to make Italy a central component of the group," Euronext CEO Stephane Boujnah told Il Sole 24 Ore in an interview.

He said that given the Milan stock exchange represented 34% of the group's total revenues, Euronext was interested in developing it.

The CEO said Euronext would invest in Italy to internationalise Borsa Italiana's platforms and develop new services.

Under the LSE group, Milan represented only 6% of the group's revenues, Boujnah said. "The truth is that Milan gradually became a 'forgotten' marketplace, peripheral rather than autonomous."

The group is expected to present its strategic and industrial plan in October or November.

The acquisition was politically sensitive in Italy due to Borsa Italiana's ownership of MTS, the bond platform where the country's 2-trillion euro debt is traded.

Boujnah said that he had started talking with the European Commission, the Eurogroup head Paschal Donohoe and several EU commissioners about MTS' role in the EU's 800 million euro ($949.84 million) debt issuance, which will back grants and loans to member states aimed at economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

"MTS, which already trades Italian and other countries' public debt, can help manage the issue and exchange of new EU bonds," he said.

($1 = 0.8422 euros)

(Reporting by Giulia Segreti. Editing by Jane Merriman) ((Giulia.Segreti@tr.com; +39.06.80307714;))