Italian Referendum: Well, That Didn’t Go As Planned…

Italy’s young and dashing Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has decided to roll the dice, gambling his and his country’s political future, and, unsurprisingly given that it’s 2016, he lost. Renzi had embarked on an ambitious program aiming to reform the calcified Italian state and economy, taking on both the EU bureaucracy and Italian populists. The constitutional referendum was meant to be the capstone of those reforms, streamlining how the Italian state, which has given us such gems like Silvio Berlusconi, functions. Renzi’s referendum was defeated by an overwhelming margin, prompting him to resign in a tearful speech delivered Sunday night. The referendum had been opposed by far-right and far-left populists (with a healthy dose of Russian propaganda) who supported the “no” campaign, not because of the referendum’s merits but just because they hated Renzi. The loss of the referendum, and Renzi’s retirement, will plunge Italy along with the EU into unchartered territory, placing the future of the Euro and even the EU at risk.