Nicholas Farrell Nicholas Farrell

Italy’s Brexit moment

PM Matteo Renzi is on course to lose a referendum – plunging the country into even more chaos than normal

issue 19 November 2016

Though he is a big fan of the European Union, Barack Obama brings bad karma to it. So perhaps he should not have chosen Greece and Germany, the two countries which illustrate so poignantly why the euro is doomed, for his last foreign tour.

His farewell visit is, if not a kiss of death, surely a bad omen for the EU and most immediately for one of those present in Berlin to bid him goodbye: Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who has called an all–important referendum on constitutional reform for 4 December.

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