, Columnist
Italy's Extraordinary $146 Billion Experiment
The new government is a strange mix of the unknown and the untested, and will struggle to get its vast spending plans past Brussels.
Spend, spend, spend.
Photographer: Giulio Napolitano/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Italy’s new government is one of the most extraordinary democratic experiments tried in western Europe since the Second World War.
The Five Star Movement and the League have put together a largely inexperienced ministerial team, which is promising a set of policies that seem impossible to deliver. They face formidable constraints, from Italy’s fragile public finances to the EU rules that Rome must abide by. It’s only fair that the two parties have their shot at governing, but it’s hard to see how they can succeed.