Opinion

Mario Draghi puts Italy at the grown-ups’ table

Mario Draghi’s appointment as prime minister of Italy has consequences that go way beyond his own country. The man who’s credited with saving the euro in 2012 has some very clear ideas about the future of the monetary union. As he returns to Europe’s top table, he has a chance to p...

Opinion

Europe is flirting with a vaccine disaster

It’s hard not to look in dismay at the feeble start to the European Union’s Covid vaccination campaign.The bloc has only managed to administer about 8.9 million doses in total, according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker, about two for every 100 citizens. The U.S. and the U.K. are running...

Opinion

Rich versus poor, the global gap is narrowing

Income inequality is among the most hotly debated economic topics of our times. It’s also one of the most misrepresented. For years the left has condemned the widening disparities that followed the financial crisis. And yet, a recent paper showed the global income gap actually declined between...

Opinion

Italy needs a good political shakeup

Can a country weather a political crisis on top of a pandemic and a recession? Italy is about to find out.Matteo Renzi, the country’s former prime minister and leader of a small centrist party, has withdrawn his ministers from the administration of the current premier, Giuseppe Conte, bringing...

Opinion

Spain is headed in wrong direction

At the end of a terrible 2020, Pedro Sanchez has something to celebrate. Spain’s prime minister has succeeded in passing the country’s first full-year budget since 2016 even though he presides over a minority government. A string of regional parties suddenly warmed to his left-wing ...

Opinion

Italy reverts to its bad old habits

The European Union’s attempt to put together a joint fiscal response to the Covid-19 recession is being held up by a pair of troublemakers. Hungary and Poland are resisting efforts to link the disbursement of emergency funds to a commitment to the rule of law, which they see as an undue intrus...

Opinion

Europe is planning its very own e-currency

The European Central Bank appears serious about a digital euro. Barely a month after the central bank issued a major report on the topic, and opened a public consultation, President Christine Lagarde said “her hunch” is that the euro zone could have its own electronic currency within two...

Opinion

Is Europe headed for a fiscal union?

Amid the gloom of the pandemic’s second wave, some European enthusiasts are wondering whether this crisis might finally usher in a “fiscal union” of states.The roaring success this week of the European Union’s first social bond, issued to help fight off the pandemic recession...

Opinion

Europe takes a Swedish turn on tackling Covid-19

Last spring, as the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic swept through Europe, Sweden became the continent’s controversial exception on how to tackle the virus. As other countries — from Italy to the U.K. — enforced draconian lockdowns, the Swedes went for a light touch. That sparke...

Opinion

Italy is suddenly looking very French

The pandemic has prompted governments to take a more active role in managing their economies. Politicians are giving out generous loan guarantees and subsidizing wages to reduce the risk of a wave of bankruptcies and mass unemployment. The next step is taking over companies directly. After a spree o...

Opinion

How is Italy avoiding a second pandemic wave?

Italy was a symbol of the first wave of the pandemic. It was the first country in the world to go into a national lockdown, as its hospitals — especially in cities such as Bergamo and Cremona in the north — struggled to cope with the spike of cases and there was a sharp increase in death...

Opinion

Why Europe is in better shape than the US

After the Great Recession, the American economy rebounded faster and stronger than the eurozone, raising doubts over the effectiveness of the “European social model.” As Europe emerges from the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in better shape than the US, its combination of welfare st...

Opinion

Spain’s tragedy was all too predictable

From the hospitals in Bergamo to the Pope’s prayers in Rome, Italy has become the symbol of the COVID-19 epidemic in Europe. But as the contagion in Italy slows and the daily death toll starts to fall, the eyes of the world have moved to Spain, which is suffering from an equal — if not w...

Opinion

Italy’s coronavirus lockdown tests the limits of democracy

Italy has adopted seemingly draconian measures to stop the outbreak of Covid-19 that has killed 463 people in the country so far and forced a further 650 into hard-pressed intensive care units.Some 17 million people are now in quarantine in the northern region of Lombardy and in 14 other provinces, ...

Opinion

Europe’s coronavirus plan is not enough

The economic damage from the coronavirus epidemic has prompted calls for Europe to relax its fiscal rules to allow governments to cut taxes and increase spending. The European Commission seems to agree: Paolo Gentiloni, its economy czar, has hinted that affected governments -- such as Italy -- may e...

Opinion

Greece gets a dose of McKinsey management

Since the euro crisis earlier this decade, Greece has been the sick man of the monetary union. Athens has at times been in danger of crashing out of the single currency, despite three rescue programs and the restructuring of its sovereign debt. Last year the economy was still 24 percent smaller than...