Italy's debt crisis may be one too many for EU

While last week's news that Italy’s economy had returned to growth in the first quarter of the year will certainly have been welcomed like the proverbial flowers of Spring across the EU, it is, for now at least, little more than a band-aid upon the towering spectre of its massive public debt.

Italian GDP had fallen 0.1% over the third and fourth quarters of 2018, forcing the eurozone’s third largest economy into a technical recession of two straight quarters of shrinking output.