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To increase economic strength of Italy they need to focus on industry but the fear is that  an election will not lead to a more responsible government 

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To increase economic strength of Italy they need to focus on industry but the fear is that  an election will not lead to a more responsible government 

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Italy's unemployment rate

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the EU is the one thing keeping Italy going - but it's breaking under the weight

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"Italy has the 2nd highest sovereign debt ratio to GDP in the EU. Italy's Economy is the center stage or the main topic of election campaigns"

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"There were fears that the EU's fourth largest economy might fall into the abyss and drag the rest of the eurozone with it."

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Venice-The great German novelist Thomas Mann once rightly described this bejewelled city as one of 'flattering and suspect beauty, half fairy tale and half tourist trap'. The same can be said for the country of Italy as a whole, where things are rarely as they seem.

For the problem with political soap operas is when they become suddenly deadly serious, as is presently happening in a country where political schisms are as common as great food and peerless scenery. The wounded ruling Democratic Party (PD) has split, with the rebels forming a new party called (confusingly enough) the DP, The Progressive and Democratic Movement.

It seems as if we are all trapped in the unbeatable scene from the great Monty Python movie, Life of Brian, where the Pythons sketch out in hilarious detail the infinitesimal differences that have led the anti-Roman movement to splinter into a thousand pieces.

Yet lurking just beneath the obvious hilarity of the endless splits in the Italian left-founded at least as much on personal jealousies and vendettas as real political disagreements-something terribly serious is going on here. As this column predicted, the defeat of former Prime Minister (and present beleaguered head of the PD) Matteo Renzi leaves Italy just two moves away from bolting from the euro-zone, dooming the whole flawed project to its final reckoning.

If the radical populist Five Star movement of comedian Beppe Grillo were to win the next election (which must be called by February 2018 at the latest), that arch euro-sceptic has vowed to call a referendum on euro-membership itself. Present opinion polls place such a pivotal vote as too close to call.

Formerly staunch euro-federalists, Italians have grown ever more sceptical as their economy has moved backwards since the Lehman crisis of 2008. In February 2017, the European Commission warned Rome it must reduce its Everest-like debt mountain of 133% of GDP. Presently, youth unemployment hovers at 36%, a Depression-era level by any measure. Worse, Germany (and its EU henchmen) are seen increasingly by Italians as the villain of the piece, forcing the country into endless rounds of austerity without delivering the economic growth which is the only thing to make such a sacrifice politically palatable.

With Renzi's PD split, an Ipsos poll of February 2017 had the Five Star movement pull into the lead for the first time, with 30.9% of the projected coming vote. The PD was down to 30.1%, with Silvio Berlusconi's discredited Forza Italia movement at 13%, and the rising populist, anti-immigrant Northern League on 12.8%. As the PD is all that is left of the Italian political elite, its recent schism makes the odds on Five Star coming to power more and more favourable.

And there is no one waiting in the wings to save the Italian elite from itself. Renzi was discredited by his December 2016 overwhelming referendum defeat over electoral reform. Berlusconi was discredited by his many wasted years in power, where Italy failed to undertake the desperately needed structural reforms to make its economy fit for purpose in the post-Great Recession era. Both the established left and the right in Italy have taken to falling apart internally, making their failures seem both comical and contemptible.

It is as if we are in a late scene in Lampedusa's grand, tragic masterpiece, The Leopard, where Don Fabrizio, the Prince of Salina, entirely comprehends both that his world is falling apart, and that he will do absolutely nothing to stop it. Last week, in a dinner with influential Italian friends of 20 years, the ghost of Don Fabrizio was explicitly conjured up, in order to explain to me what is presently going on in Italian politics.

For my wise and kind hosts were explaining that the Italian established order as it has been known here is dying, and more importantly why no one is doing much of anything to halt this slide into the abyss. But there are bigger beasts about to be slain here. For Italy-unlike its equally ailing fellow euro-zone member Greece-is simply too big to fail. Neither Brussels nor Berlin can hope to bail it out. As such, the coming populist rejection of the euro by Italy would definitively spell the currency's end in its present form.

The organic political scene in Italy suits its nature, part comic, part tragic, and very human. However, this time the consequences of Italian political failure could well prove incalculable for Europe as a whole.
Published in City AM London, March 6, 2017.

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Italy's dying elite is dragging the Eurozone ever closer towards the abyss

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Venice-The great German novelist Thomas Mann once rightly described this bejewelled city as one of 'flattering and suspect beauty, half fairy tale and half tourist trap'. The same can be said for the country of Italy as a whole, where things are rarely as they seem.

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What will get Italy out of an economic crisis:

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What will get Italy out of an economic crisis:

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Manufacturing, (mainly architectural and chemical products), exporting, low budget deficits, and high domestic savings.

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Access more than 57,000 articles from the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.

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"Unemployment in Italy is more than 11%. For people under the age of 25, the unemployment rate is more than 36%"

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"Unemployment in Italy is more than 11%. For people under the age of 25, the unemployment rate is more than 36%"

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¨The Italian economy is in its longest recession in 20 years¨  

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¨The Italian economy is in its longest recession in 20 years¨  

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The Italian Economy

Italy has a diversified industrial economy, which is divided into a developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less-developed, welfare-dependent, agricultural south, with high unemployment. The Italian economy is driven in large part by the manufacture of high-quality consumer goods produced by small and medium-sized enterprises, many of them family owned.

Italy also has a sizable underground economy, which by some estimates accounts for as much as 15% of GDP. These activities are most common within the agriculture, construction, and service sectors. Italy has moved slowly on implementing needed structural reforms, such as reducing graft, overhauling costly entitlement programs, and increasing employment opportunities for young workers, particularly women.

The international financial crisis worsened conditions in Italy's labor market, with unemployment rising from 6.2% in 2007 to 8.4% in 2010, but in the longer-term Italy's low fertility rate and quota-driven immigration policies will increasingly strain its economy. A rise in exports and investment driven by the global economic recovery nevertheless helped the economy grow by about 1% in 2010 following a 5% contraction in 2009.

The Italian government has struggled to limit government spending, but Italy's exceedingly high public debt remains above 115% of GDP, and its fiscal deficit-just 1.5% of GDP in 2007-exceeded 5% in 2009 and 2010, as the costs of servicing the country's debt rose.

Labor force: 25.54 million (2015 est.)
Labor force by occupation:
Exports: $454.6 billion (2015 est.)

Export commodities: Engineering products, textiles and clothing, production machinery, motor vehicles, transport equipment, chemicals; food, beverages and tobacco; minerals, and nonferrous metals.

Imports: $389.2 billion (2015 est.)

Import commodities: Engineering products, chemicals, transport equipment, energy products, minerals and nonferrous metals, textiles and clothing; food, beverages, and tobacco.
Source: CIA The World Factbook

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Italy Economy: Some Great Information on the Economy in Italy

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Italy has a diversified industrial economy, which is divided into a developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less-developed, welfare-dependent, agricultural south, with high unemployment. The Italian economy is driven in large part by the manufacture of high-quality consumer goods produced by small and medium-sized enterprises, many of them family owned.