Despite pending referendum, UK is not European Union's weakest link

One of the obvious reasons is its public debt: at over $2 trillion, it is second only to Greece in these dismal stakes. Another is the weakness of the Italian banks, which are burdened with bad debt of some $350 billion. It can be managed, say the financial authorities, as long as growth continues to increase: at present, however, it's slowing.

... the heterogeneous nation-states of the [Italian] peninsula, which showed such world-beating creativity in every field through mediaeval and Renaissance times, were then subject to stronger powers, taking advantage of disunity, dominating large parts of the peninsula. Unity was, and still is, promoted as overthrowing the foreign domination. But its effect was a country internally divided, a south sullen in the face of northern imperialism, a politics that could only work through endless compromises and increasing corruption.

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It's quite possible that the country can't produce a political party, or class, capable of achieving this transformation. The party now growing in power is the Five Star movement of the comedian Beppe Grillo, which started a mere seven years ago as an internet-based protest wave. It now seems to be evolving into a populist-cum anti-corruption force, deeply skeptical of the euro -- which Grillo has called "an anti-democratic straitjacket" -- and even the EU itself. Its chances of winning are promising; those of becoming the necessary force for deep system change, slim.