Ashoka Mody

On February 28, I wrote a piece with a premonition: 'Italy: the crisis that could go viral.' On March 10, I did a follow-up with a more urgent message: 'Italy will need a precautionary bailout—a financial firewall—as the coronavirus pushes it to the brink.' A lifetime has passed since then and the incoming data for Europe and, especially, Italy, is grimmer than anyone could have anticipated. But the framework that guided the economic and financial analysis of my two earlier pieces remains a useful way of tracking this unfolding crisis.

Ursula von der Leyen was an unloved choice to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as the next president of the European Commission. She emerged from a ferociously contentious process as a last-minute compromise and she promptly fell into a storm of criticism. Even members of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) shellacked her. In the thankless role of German defence minister, she was unable to overcome the handicaps imposed by Germany’s postwar pacifism and mindless fiscal stinginess, while a former defence minister blamed her for the “catastrophic” state of the German army. A member of the Bundestag mockingly said: “It’s good for the army that she’s going.