Twenty-five years after its launch, the eurozone is failing its citizens. In Spain, the unemployment rate sits at 10.29 percent. In Greece, 26.9 percent of people are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Meanwhile, Italy’s public debt has climbed to 137.9 percent of GDP, the second highest in the euro area after Greece. The […]
Tag: Italy
The Evolution of Italy’s Five Star Movement: From Populist Firebrands to Establishment Gatekeepers
“Mussolini was less brash, at least he called his coup a coup!” thundered comedian-turned-politician Giuseppe “Beppe” Grillo. This attack from a 2015 blog post concerned then-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s proposed referendum on election reform. The inflammatory language used was par for the course for Grillo. His party, the Five Star Movement (M5S), had recently entered […]
Rebuild and Recover
Rebuild and Recover: Earthquakes and Economic Crisis Strike Central Italy Central Italy is still reeling from a string of powerful earthquakes that rocked the region in late October. Dozens of hilltop towns were flattened, dealing further damage to communities already emptied by a grinding economic recession. Many villages were razed and almost 50,000 were displaced […]
The Brave Reformer
BY GIACOMO TOGNINI Facing -2.1% GDP quarterly growth rate and 12.5% unemployment, Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s problems continue. His government recently passed a new budget that reduced fiscal austerity and increased state spending. His next target is Italy’s constitution, a document that established Italy’s bloated bureaucratic public sector which continues to drain resources from the […]