Most of Italy’s issues stem from specific points in Italy’s economic system. One of the largest issues is the country is excessive government spending. In the early 2000s, the country’s debt, spending and the division between the north and the south was affecting the country. Since the south is metaphorically cut off from the north they suffer corrupt government spending and are widely and actively controlled by the mafia. Towards the late 2000s, the Parliament and the prime minister were working to regulate all the troublesome areas. In 2007, the Italian Ministry of Interior affaires reported that the mafia was collecting protection money and controlling 80% of the businesses in the south, and was estimated to be generating 13 billion pounds in profit (“Economy of Italy”). Due to the reaction time of the government, many laws are slow to pass and once passed are slow to introduce and active in the country. All these issues are only a few of the reasons why the recession hit Italy so hard in 2009. The GDP from 2009-2010, in Italy dropped from 2307.31 billion to 2111.15 billion and has started to average 2089.49 billion from 2010-2015 ("Italy …show more content…
The country has a president, but the way the president of Italy operates is drastically different from that of our US president. The Italian president is more of a political figure and most of his duties entail monitoring the Parliament and appointing a Prime Minister (Glauco). The Parliament is broken into three sections much like ours. They have the Executive, Legislative a Juridical branch. Common laws are frequently passed back and forth between the branches of the government, which slows down the approval of new laws (Glauco). The political system also suffers from old age, since world war two the government has not changed and the structure and standard operating procedures (Glauco). Even with the effort from political forces within the government, these forces are unable to make a change in order to improve the situation that Italy is facing. Many do not agree with the voting system that Italy has in place. One area that many citizens and political forces do not agree on is the election of presidents and Prime Ministers. Italians have no say on who will be president or Prime Minister, but the only effect they can have is choosing the political figures who serve on the Parliament. Those in the Parliament are the only ones who have a vote towards the next Prime Minister or president (Glauco). These are examples of the political crutch that Italy is standing on. Many fear that the