Europe’s make-or-break country: what’s wrong with Italy’s economy

Italy is the eurozone’s third largest economy, but its economy is the same size as it was in 2000; and it still has the third largest sovereign debt burden in the world, after the US and Japan. Italy could yet pull the eurozone apart – and indeed the EU. Italy's dismal economic record has two potential causes: its membership of the euro, and successive governments’ failure to reform the Italian economy. Membership of the euro has not helped Italy, but mostly it has itself to blame for its economic woes