Italy

It is important both because of its content as well as for the symbolic meaning it has assumed. The strokes of the counter reform against the constitution fall very hard. The newly conceived Senate (Upper House), for instance, retains important powers (such as on constitutional questions, in the relations with the EU, about local authorities, the election of the president, etc.), but should no longer be elected. The Senate was thus not abolished, as

Il s’agit en fait plus précisément des cellules stay-behind (littéralement : restés derrière), qui étaient des réseaux clandestins coordonnés par l’OTAN. Implantées dans seize pays d’Europe de l’Ouest, ces cellules visaient à combattre une éventuelle occupation par le bloc de l’Est, se tenant prêtes à être activées en cas d’invasion par les forces du Pacte de Varsovie. La plus

The strokes of the counter reform against the constitution fall very hard. The newly conceived Senate (Upper House), for instance, retains important powers (such as on constitutional questions, in the relations with the EU, about local authorities, the election of the president, etc.), but should no longer be elected. The Senate was thus not abolished, as Renzi’s propaganda pretends, but it was democracy has been abolished.

The location of the third European No-Euro-Forum itself, Chianciano Terme in Tuscany, can be considered symbolic for the urgent need of an exit strategy to leave the corset of the currency union: during the 80ties it was a prosperous small town with it’s hot springs and hundreds of hotels where workers and pensioners spent their spa stays, financed from a

A Conversation With Matteo Renzi. Matteo Renzi discusses the political and economic issues facing Italy and the European Union

The Ventotene summit among Prime Minister Renzi, Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande took place recently. Crucial issues were on the agenda: the geo-political conflicts at the borders of the European Union; internal security; migratory flows; economic growth. A strong wind of rhetoric about relaunching the ideals of the founding fathers of a united Europe

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was the only western leader attending the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Some events are not accidental, especially if they are followed by far-reaching consequences.

By Will Martin Europe is heading towards a "cataclysmic event" that could lead to the collapse of the euro and the end of the European project...

A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of banking collapses in Italy, which could lead to renewed crisis in the eurozone, and a wider banking crisis affecting other countries with high exposure to Italian bank debt. Italy’s banks are in deep trouble, weighed down by €360bn of bad debt (“non-performing loans” in the jargon), equivalent to a fifth of Italy’s GDP (and about 18% of all the banks’ loans).

In Italy the banking crisis has been written on the wall for some time, the product of the concurrent circumstances of a weak economy (with attendant increase in the banks' NPL [non performing loans]), the imposition by the ECB of ever tighter capital requirements along with near-zero interest rates and untimely adoption of bail-in provisions.