Though he is a big fan of the European Union, Barack Obama brings bad karma to it. So perhaps he should not have chosen Greece and Germany, the two countries which illustrate so poignantly why the euro is doomed, for his last foreign tour.
His farewell visit is, if not a kiss of death, surely a bad omen for the EU and most immediately for one of those present in Berlin to bid him goodbye: Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who has called an all–important referendum on constitutional reform for 4 December. If he loses, as looks ever more likely, it could cause a run on Italy’s sclerotic banks that could engulf the eurozone.
Obama was certainly defying the gods last month when he gave his last state dinner at the White House — ‘a swirl of Dolce Vita diplomacy’, CNN called it — in honour of the 41-year-old Renzi. The Italian prime minister, who is the leader of Italy’s former communist party and the third unelected leader of this troubled country in five years, was praised by Obama as ‘bold’ and ‘progressive’.
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