Swiss Talk of Annexing Italy’s Former CIA Spy Nest Roils Rome

Campione d’Italia, a tiny sliver of Italian land inside Switzerland, has reason to feel like a pawn in someone else’s game.

Part of the province of Como, the 2.7 kilometer (one-square mile) commune about seven miles from the Italian border has faced a crisis since the closure last year of the casino that dominated its economy. The shutdown threw 500 of the village’s 2,000 people out of jobs and left its main street dotted with vacant storefronts carrying “for-sale” signs. A banner on a railing on Lake Lugano, on which the commune sits, plainly says: “SOS CAMPIONE IS DEAD.”

The casino was once the biggest in Europe. Now, creditors are fighting in an Italian court for their share of its 85 million euros ($93 million) debt. Meanwhile, two events have intensified Campione’s peril. One is a years-in-the-making plan pushed by Italy to tie the municipality closer to the European Union, which kicks in on Jan. 1. The other is a bold suggestion recently by a Swiss politician that his country annex the struggling territory.