Comments on: Next up for a spot of bother: Italy

By: G Wells

G Wells — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:12:00 +0000

All European countries are a Greece or Italy waiting to happen. Up until the euro, the country would simply devalue its currency, take a hit and recover within a few years. Look at iceland.

Without that ability, the pain and destruction to come is inevitable.

By: Le pauvre homme

Le pauvre homme — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 07:15:00 +0000

Joseph’s man-crushes don’t seem to be doing that great. Cameron has vanished and Renzi is about to.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:31:00 +0000

On the contrary, recent events have made people MORE aware of the dangers of right-wing populism and fearmongering about immigration. The dangers of stupid thinking about both – as evidenced in the British referendum – have concentrated minds even further AGAINST populism.

By: Daphne Caruana Galizia

Daphne Caruana Galizia — Sat, 16 Jul 2016 14:06:00 +0000

Aren’t you being overly dramatic for somebody who lived under the permanent threat of that red button in the Cold War?

By: Jozef

Jozef — Sat, 16 Jul 2016 13:47:00 +0000

Misses the bigger picture. If MPS has a burden of bad debts due an austerity program which wrought havoc on the real economy, Deutsch Bank is the real thermonuclear device.

The point is not whether Italy can or cannot afford to save its banks, it can – it’s whether Germany, with its banks buried under a pile of toxic derivatives and which restructuring is destroying Europe’s industrial fabric, is the real source of this vicious endless cycle.

Even if the referendum were to pass, the detente remains.

Italy may truly be the last one to hold onto an EU opposed to Schaeuble’s loose agglomerate of intergovernmental dynamics coordinated by Goldman Sachs.

As for constitutional reforms there are valid reasons both for and against. Not that anyone with a modicum of iridescence outside Italy is interested.

And it is this sole interest in financial consequences with the prompt implicit link to the EU’s survival which is driving voters away in droves.

The reform to the senate implies having Regional councillors holding a dual seat, critics insist these will carry into a national senate greatly reduced in number their parochial petty mentality. Valid point.

It is Renzi who threatens to leave if the referendum fails. Critics refuse to be blackmailed.

By: Natalie

Natalie — Sat, 16 Jul 2016 12:57:00 +0000

Why aren’t politicians doing their jobs? Shouldn’t they be the ones taking decisions? Why do they keep referring to their citizens for the really important decisions? Isn’t that why they’re elected so that the people don’t have to do this themselves?

No wonder some people are losing faith in their governments.

By: Rifless

Rifless — Sat, 16 Jul 2016 12:12:00 +0000

Italy, like the UK and many others (not excluding Malta), will be paying a high price for decisions taken by populist politicians.