Italy’s illnesses could be contagious
In Europe, Italy was hit hardest by the pandemic because it was hit first. Hospitals filled up with patients; one local newspaper was so overwhelmed with obituaries that it published only thumbnail-size ones. The entire country was subject to draconian restrictions, the strictest in the West.
Still, Italy rallied: Infections are now under control, a contact-tracing system is in place, and its economy and borders have reopened, although not to visitors from the United States. Tourist-dependent cities like Rome, Florence, and Venice are still suffering, but Milan, the country’s economic engine, is slowly coming back to life.
Italy is not out of the woods, though. It has the third-largest economy in the European Union, after Germany and France, and the second-highest public debt as a percentage of the economy, after Greece. It is led by a weak coalition government. Its middle class is struggling, its social mobility declining, and its poverty rising. Its gross domestic product is expected to drop by about 11 percent this year. The country’s interior minister recently warned of possible social unrest this fall if businesses fail and lay off workers. In the meantime, organized crime is poised to pick up some of the slack by offering loans at usurious rates. Its population is declining—the country registers more deaths than births, while the percentage of citizens emigrating rose 16 percent from 2018 to 2019, even before the pandemic hit. It has among the lowest female-employment levels in the EU. Its faith in the EU project is flagging, and a right-wing populist opposition party, which is leading in polls, is under investigation for illegal dealings with Russia.
The coronavirus has decidedly confirmed Italy’s place as the weakest link in the West—the biggest country with significant economic and political instability; a proxy battlefield in Western Europe between American, Chinese, and Russian influence; and the most serious threat to the future viability of the European Union. “Italy is the sick man of Europe,” as Marc Lazar, a political-science professor at Sciences Po in Paris and Luiss University in Rome, put it to me. [Continue reading…]