Italy’s government bonds had their best week in more than six years, and yields are at their lowest since 2016, prompting the government to lock in bargains by issuing 50-year debt this week but the driver isn’t budget prudence, but the prospect of ECB moves, providing a guaranteed buyer of Italian debt.

After his resignation in 2013, Pope Benedict chose to live in the Vatican in silence. But his presence, his influence, and a growing campaign is causing problems for Pope Francis and threatens to undermine his papacy, writes TP O’Mahony.

Dozens of far-right social media accounts are operated from Ireland, and some have as many as 40,000 followers. They spread misinformation and harass specific groups of people.

The Italian government looks sets to another collision course with the European Union as the commission seemed set to impose sanctions on the country over its budget deficit, sending Italian bond yields sharply higher.

Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has told his party he wants to keep its fractious coalition government going, but is ready to see it collapse if he cannot push through his flat tax plans and other priority measures.

Low interest rates are justified by economic conditions in the eurozone and their impact on banks’ profitability should not be exaggerated, says ECB policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau.

A merger between Fiat and Renault must include guarantees on French jobs and factories and fit with an existing Franco-Japanese car partnership, according to France finance minister Bruno Le Maire.

The European Commission is understood to be considering proposing a disciplinary procedure for Italy next week over its failure to rein in debt, which could pave the way for a €3.5bn penalty.

The monopoly of power has been broken. Europe has found itself at a crossroads as the far right and Greens make substantial gains in European elections, writes Lorne Cook.

The possibility that Boris Johnson might greet President Donald Trump as UK prime minister when he arrives in this part of the world cannot be discounted.

Voters across Europe are about to head to the polls to elect 751 members to the European Parliament from across 28 separate member states, representing more than 512m people.

Italy's hard-line interior minister Matteo Salvini has threatened legal action after 47 migrants rescued at sea landed on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, despite an explicit ban.

Fundamentalists hostile to Europe’s values are covertly backing right-wing elements across the bloc, says Mary Fitzgerald

Those who believed that Donald Trump might not be a good president for America or an inspiring, reliable partner in the alliances that have sustained the West for decades may feel vindicated. Those who opposed the inevitable chaos of Brexit equally so.

The biggest danger we face is not a straightforward revival of fascism, but rather a creeping shift in traditional conservatism towards the extreme populist right, says Michael Burleigh.

UK liberals want a second Brexit vote to reverse the decision to leave the EU. But it would generate class war, writes John Lloyd

It was almost inevitable that a Southern Europe state would eventually close its doors to immigrants from Africa.

The country’s eurosceptics on the left and right — anti-austerity and anti-immigration, respectively — have united in government and may yet succeed in upending the European project, says Mark Leonard.

The rise of pro-Putin parties in the recent Italian elections has again underlined how American leverage has waned in comparison, writes John Lloyd.

Two populist and stridently anti-European Union political groups, both fierce rivals, surged in Italy's parliamentary election at the expense of the country's traditional powers, but neither gained enough support to govern alone, preliminary results showed.

A right-wing extremist suspected in the shooting rampage that wounded six Africans in central Italy was "lucid and determined, aware of what he had done" and exhibited no remorse for his actions, an official said.

The leader of an Italian party that hopes to capitalise on growing resentment of migrants and asylum-seekers told supporters it would be "splendid" if he wins national elections and his government can issue one-way tickets home to undeserving refugees.

The presidents of Italy's wealthy northern regions of Veneto and Lombardy have claimed victory in autonomy referendums that seek to grab additional powers and tax revenue from Rome.

Italy is the only country in the eurozone where per capita output has actually fallen since it joined the euro, writes Gavin Jones.

Italy's populist opposition 5-Star Movement says it is ready to run the country after voters triggered the demise of prime minister Matteo Renzi with a stinging defeat on his reforms referendum.

The referendum result in Italy, which comes after Donald Trump's election last month and the Brexit referendum in June, could now potentially trigger a further bout of political and economic turmoil not just in Italy, but across Europe too, argues Andrew Hammond.

Britain: An orangutan called Rocky has outperformed Sylvester Stallone in the movie of the same name by displaying an ability to emulate human speech.

The UK’s vote to leave the EU reflects a global trend in which people left behind by globalisation embrace a murky blend of nostalgia and nationalism, writes British historian Owen Matthews.

Building more permanent camps, together with the provision of work for migrants is an idea that’s going in the right direction, writes John Lloyd

Heartened by recent election successes by an anti-immigrant party, Italian politicians based in the north vowed yesterday not to shelter any more migrants saved at sea, even as hundreds more were being rescued in the Mediterranean from smugglers’ boats in distress.

As many as 950 people were feared dead after a fishing boat packed with migrants capsized off the Libyan coast in what may be one of the worst disasters of the Mediterranean migrant crisis, officials said.

Italy’s president has resigned, setting off a scramble for a new head of state that will test premier Matteo Renzi’s ability to unite his own bickering party without alienating opposition support for electoral reform.

Italy’s maritime search and rescue service has saved 3,500 migrants and found 19 corpses in the Mediterranean since Friday as thousands attempted to cross to Europe by boat over the weekend, the Italian navy said.

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The rise in the number of far-right MEPs who say the people should decide everything, not the EU, poses a serious threat to the work of the institution, writes Europe Correspondent Ann Cahill