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| Paolo Savona |
The Trojan War was caused by Prince Paris’s brutal kidnapping of Helen, wife of the King of Troy, said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Last week, the greatest crisis in Italian democracy since 1945 was triggered by the nomination of an 81-year-old semi-retired academic economist, Paolo Savona, as Finance Minister in the new Italian populist government. Savona has advocated that Italy quit the euro currency. For a couple of days, Italy was on the brink of the peacetime equivalent of the Trojan War, a dispute between an unelected president and an elected Parliament. The populist parties that won the election attacked Italian President Mattarella for frustrating the right of the election victors to name a government of their choosing. The president countered that Italy could not leave the euro without a referendum.
