ITALY

ITALY has had no fewer than 65 governments since the War – with an average survival rate of just over a year. The country is hardly renowned as a beacon of democratic stability.

Even by the standards of this volatile nation, however, the current political crisis is becoming more troubling and bizarre by the day. It proves yet again the disastrous folly of imposing the one-size-fits-all euro on countries for which it is so obviously unsuitable. Pertinently, it demonstrates that Brussels has no qualms about trampling on democracy to keep the dream of a European superstate alive.

Italy’s national finances are in a dire state. Marooned in a sea of debt, with a stagnant economy and crippling unemployment rate, citizens of that beleaguered land renounced their mainstream Europhile parties in a general election just three months ago. They rightly blamed membership of the single currency for their misery and elected a coalition of unashamedly populist, Eurosceptic parties – led by the maverick Five Star movement and Right-wing Northern League.

Yet, when radical economist Paolo Savona – a passionate opponent of the euro – was named finance minister he was vetoed by Italy’s slavishly pro-Brussels president Sergio Matarella, who then nominated his own man as prime minister and invited him to form a totally unelected government. It has no mandate of course and will soon fall. Mr Matarella could possibly be impeached for overreaching his powers. But what an affront to democracy.

Had this happened in some Third World state, it would have quickly been denounced as tyrannical and corrupt. Not in Europe. In both Paris and Berlin, Mr Matarella is being praised for his courage. There is no better example or illustration of how people across the European continent are being disenfranchised – and just why they are crying out for change.