Italy

What was Europe’s debt problem is starting to look like Europe’s taxation problem. Words emerging from a one-day European Union summit in Brussels show EU leaders aren’t focused just on spending and deficits: they announced an investigation into “aggressive” use...

The revolution begins in Valletta — that’s the European center-left’s rallying cry after a longtime conservative bastion, Malta, fell to the Labour Party over the weekend. Never mind that with growth last year of 1 percent and a jobless rate...

For once, Mario Monti had a sympathetic audience — dozens of European officials he mingled with and presided over during a 10-year European Commission career that, by the looks of it, he will remember more fondly than the 15 months...

The Italian elections were his to lose, and Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani did a really good job of almost doing just that. Bersani, a former communist who backed Prime Minister Mario Monti’s technical government, squandered a 15-point poll...

Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise resignation and the popular San Remo music festival may have clipped some of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s momentum in the campaign for Italy’s end-of-month election amid a blackout on opinion polls. Pope Benedict’s Feb. 11...

It’s not going to be easy for Mario Draghi today. The President of the European Central Bank is often lauded as a straight talker. He might have to be just the opposite when he gives a press conference at 14:30...

February 6, 2010 Berlusconi Says Italy Handling Crisis Best in EU Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Italy is standing up to the financial crisis better than all other European countries, news agency Ansa reported. Europe’s debt crisis only seems...

Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has cut the lead of front-runner Pier Luigi Bersani to 5 percentage points in the countdown to Italian parliamentary elections Feb. 24-25. Berlusconi is tapping into public anger over a banking scandal at Banca Monte...

Revelations that Banca Monte Paschi hid details of structured finance deals that may produce hundreds of millions of euros in losses is embroiling everyone from Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, while providing fodder...

Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s media blitz is paying off, with his center-right coalition closing the gap with Italy’s Democratic Party ahead of Feb. 24-25 election. The three-time premier, who has always been as much showman as statesmen, has done...