The Italian Economy and the Eurozone Crisis

• In Event: Italian Politics after a Decade of Economic Recession

Abstract

This paper charts the trajectory of the Italian economy and the responses of successive Italian governments to the Eurozone crisis by placing the impact in the broader context of the economic decline in Italy since the 1990s. The Italian economy was, with other southern European countries, hit particularly hard by the crisis of 2008, and the political ramifications were dramatic, with the collapse of the Berlusconi government in late 2011 and its replacement by a ‘technical’ government. This impact has tended to overshadow the problems the Italian economy had been undergoing for a decade before that crisis and deflect those problems onto the crisis. In fact, the Eurozone crisis exacerbated long-festering problems in the Italian economy, and the sovereign debt crisis threw into sharp relief long-term difficulties in the relationship between Italy and the European Union (EU). As a consequence, Italian governments, in this period, have become more assertive and questioning of EU policy which, in line with growing levels of Euroscepticism, mark in many respects the end of a long-term tradition of unreserved Europhilia in Italy.

Author

• Martin J Bull, University of Salford