ANALYSIS: Italian elections cast a pall over European Union

Since the European Union's founding treaty was signed in Rome more than 60 years ago, Italy has been an unabashed booster of increased unity and common purpose. That may have come to an end, suggests Raf Casert.

Euroskeptics and populists rode a wave of hostility toward all things EU and surged to the fore in Italian elections on Sunday, turning the founding EU nation into a potential obstructionist just when the bloc was emerging from a decade of economic gloom and seemed poised to rekindle its grand ambitions.