Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Opinion
Mark Gilbert

Turkey’s Warning to Italian Euroskeptics

Rising costs to service ballooning debt are a reminder that investors get to vote every day.

Matteo Salvini at a July rally. Investors can vote every day, not just in elections.

Matteo Salvini at a July rally. Investors can vote every day, not just in elections.

Photographer: Federico Bernini/Bloomberg
By

There are some politicians in the Italian government who dream of escaping the economic shackles that accompany membership of the euro and the European Union. The nightmare currently engulfing Turkish assets should be a warning that freedom isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Turkey's currency has lost almost a third of its value against the dollar in the past six months and dropped to a record low this week. The nation’s 10-year borrowing cost touched 20 percent on Tuesday as traders judged insufficient the central bank’s efforts to stem the lira's slide by modifying reserve requirements.