Italy's President Just Undermined the Euro

Italian President Sergio Mattarella might think he has taken a principled stand in vetoing euroskeptic Paolo Savona as finance minister, effectively disallowing a government led by the Five Star Movement and the League. But in rejecting the choice of a popularly elected coalition, he may well have set in motion a financial crisis from which it will be hard to pull back, and which could imperil the entire European project.

Mattarella’s disregard of recent political history displays an astonishing wooden-headedness. In October 2011, German chancellor Angela Merkel made a phone call to then Italian president Giorgio Napolitano, soon after which Napolitano grabbed an opportunity to replace Silvio Berlusconi with the unelected, Brussels-friendly technocrat Mario Monti. Although Merkel and Napolitano denied they had plotted to ease Berlusconi out, that’s the impression that prevailed. The Economist unabashedly applauded Merkel for helping “get rid of clowns like Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi.” Many Italians fumed, believing that Germany had violated their national sovereignty.