2016 Country Review

Italy 2016 Country Review http://www.countrywatch.com Table of Contents Chapter 1 1 Country Overview 1 Country Overview 2 Key Data 3 Italy 4 Europe 5 Chapter 2 7 Political Overview 7 History 8 Political Conditions 11 Political Risk Index 84 Political Stability 98 Freedom Rankings 114 Human Rights 126 Government Functions 128 Government Structure 131 Principal Government Officials 146 Leader Biography 150 Leader Biography 151 Foreign Relations 155 National Security 165 Defense Forces 168 Chapter 3 170 Economic Overview 170 Economic Overview 171 Nominal GDP and Components 197 Population and GDP Per Capita 199 Real GDP and Inflation 200 Government Spending and Taxation 201 Money Supply, Interest Rates and Unemployment 202 Foreign Trade and the Exchange Rate 203 Data in US Dollars 204 Energy Consumption and Production Standard Units 205 Energy Consumption and Production QUADS 207 World Energy Price Summary 208 CO2 Emissions 209 Agriculture Consumption and Production 210 World Agriculture Pricing Summary 213 Metals Consumption and Production 214 World Metals Pricing Summary 217 Economic Performance Index 218 Chapter 4 230 Investment Overview 230 Foreign Investment Climate 231 Foreign Investment Index 235 Corruption Perceptions Index 248 Competitiveness Ranking 259 Taxation 268 Stock Market 270 Partner Links 270 Chapter 5 272 Social Overview 272 People 273 Human Development Index 274 Life Satisfaction Index 278 Happy Planet Index 289 Status of Women 298 Global Gender Gap Index 301 Culture and Arts 311 Etiquette 311 Travel Information 314 Diseases/Health Data 323 Chapter 6 329 Environmental Overview 329 Environmental Issues 330 Environmental Policy 331 Greenhouse Gas Ranking 332 Global Environmental Snapshot 343 Global Environmental Concepts 355 International Environmental Agreements and Associations 369 Appendices 393 Bibliography 394 Italy Chapter 1 Country Overview Italy Review 2016 Page 1 of 406 pages Italy Country Overview ITALY Located in Southern Europe, Italy is a peninsula extending into the central Mediterranean Sea, northeast of the North African country of Tunisia. The countries surrounding Italy in Europe include Switzerland, Slovenia, Austria, and France. The countries San Marino and the Holy See (Vatican City) are surrounded by Italy. Italy became a nation-state in 1861 when Victor Emmanuel II, the king of Sardinia, united the regional states of the peninsula, along with Sardinia and Sicily. By 1871, the Italian nation state included the entire peninsula with Rome as the capital. From 1870 until 1922, Italy was a constitutional monarchy with a parliament elected under limited suffrage. In 1922, Benito Mussolini came to power and established a fascist dictatorship, effectively ending the era of parlimanetary governance for a period. Mussolini's alliance with Nazi Germany led to Italy's defeat in World War II. A democratic republic replaced the monarchy in 1946 and economic revival followed. In face, since the end of World War II, the Italian economy has changed dramatically from agriculturally- based into industrialized. It is now one of the largest economies in the world and the fourth largest in Europe. Italy’s overall economic structure is comparable to that of most other advanced OECD economies, with a small and diminishing agricultural sector and a large and growing services sector. In the realm of regional relations, Italy became a charter member of NATO and the European Economic Community (EEC). It has been at the forefront of European economic and political unification, joining the Economic and Monetary Union in 1999. Today, Italy must deal with persistent problems such as illegal immigration, organized crime, corruption, high unemployment, sluggish economic growth, and the low incomes and technical standards of southern Italy compared with the prosperous north. Italy Review 2016 Page 2 of 406 pages Italy Key Data Key Data Region: Europe Population: 61855120 Climate: Predominantly Mediterranean; Alpine in far north; hot, dry in south. Italian (official); German, French, Slovene and several other languages also Languages: spoken in Italy Currency: 1 Euro = 100 cents Anniversary of the Republic is 2 June (1946), Liberation Day (WWII) is 25 Holiday: April Area Total: 301230 Area Land: 294020 Coast Line: 7600 Italy Review 2016 Page 3 of 406 pages Italy Italy Country Map Italy Review 2016 Page 4 of 406 pages Italy Europe Regional Map Italy Review 2016 Page 5 of 406 pages Italy Italy Review 2016 Page 6 of 406 pages Italy Chapter 2 Political Overview Italy Review 2016 Page 7 of 406 pages Italy History Italian History in Brief In the eighty and seventh centuries before the common era (B.C.E.), the southern tip of Italy was inhabited by Greeks. Etruscans, Romans and others inhabited the central and northern mainland. Indeed, the Etruscans were some of the most significant settlers in northern Italy in the sixth century B.C.E. By the third century B.C.E., the city state of Rome had conquered most of the Italian peninsula, unifying it under the Roman Republic, and was in the process of advancing its supremacy across the greater region. In fact several islands in the area came under Roman control at this time. At its apex, the Roman Empire, which aquired that name around 30 B.C.E., dominated much of the Mediterranean and spread its Roman culture -- albeit of Hellenic origins -- across the region, as well as its system of law and jurisprudence, while functioning in a state of relative peace and prosperity. In the fifth century in the common era (C.E.), both internal discord and external pressures contributed to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Invasions to the peninsual and the islands ended the political unity that had been enjoyed for centuries. As such, Italy became an oft-changing succession of small states, principalities and kingdoms, fighting among themselves and subject to ambitions of foreign powers. Although the popes in Rome ruled central Italy, rivalries between the popes and the Holy Roman Emperors, who claimed Italy as their domain, often made the peninsula a battleground. Italy's unity was somewhat maintained from 493 C.E by the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Theodoric. The region, however, was then conquered again by Justinian around 535 C.E. The late sixth century (hereafter understood as C.E.) saw the settlement of northern Europeans and the establishment of a kingdom in Lombardy. Soon thereafter, Italy was again fragmented and was made up of several states. The next several centuries saw Italy's complex composition and developments largely divided into Italy Review 2016 Page 8 of 406 pages Italy the northern region, which was still influenced by the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy, and was characterized by the increasing ascendancy of the city states, and the sourthern region, which was culturally influenced by the Byzantines, as well as the Muslim Moors and the Normans, along with disparate other groups, such as the Aragonese, the Bourbons and the Angevins. Notably, in the eighth century, Charlemagne the Great had attained control over large swaths of Europe, including northern Italy. The ensuing centuries saw his successors try to regain imperial power in the region. In southern Italy, the Muslim Moors took control of Italy in the ninth century. However, their power was ceded to the Normans in 1059 who dominated most of the southern part of the peninsula. By the 11th century, the independent city states were flourishing, with Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Milan enjoying great commerical, cultural and political influence, and exercising relatively independent policies. The commercial prosperity of northern and central Italian cities at this time, in conjunction with the influence of the evolving Renaissance, somewhat mitigated the effects of the ongoing political rivalries of these medieval times. The 12th century saw the area become a great cultural center. There was a brief period of unity spurred by a marriage involving the Hohenstaufen empire of Henry VI and Frederick II between 1189 and 1268. Subsequently, Naples and Sicily fell under the respective control of the Houses of Anjou and Aragon, and then in 1442, the region was again reunited under the house of Aragon. The 15th century saw the Papacy play an integral role in the realm of diplomacy and geopolitics. But the period was also characterized by the unprecedented art and culture of the Italian Renaissance. Indeed, the Italian Renaissance was distinguished by the writings of Machiavelli, Aristio and Guicciardini, the poetry of Petrarch, Tasso and Ariosto, the prose of Boccaccio, Machiavelli and Castiglione, the painting, sculpture and architecture of famed artists, such as Fra Angelico, Raphael, Botticelli, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and notable patrons such as the Medici family. These icons of the Renaissance exerted a tremendous and lasting influence on the subsequent development of western civilization. Spain and France both attempted to influence Italy in the 16th century. Meanwhile, the larger city states managed to hold on to their independence, while going through a period of declining power. At the same time, the Hapsburgs exerted some control over Milan, Naples and Sicily. Some of the smaller city states, however, changed hands repeatedly over the course of the next few centuries. Although, as indicated above, Italy declined after the 16th century, the Renaissance had strengthened the idea of a single Italian nationality. This notion was only strengthened in the 18th Italy Review 2016 Page 9 of 406 pages Italy century by the Age of Enlightenment. Indeed, in the 18th century, the principles of the Age of Enlightenment were of particular influence to many city states, and found resonance most notably in the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily. Opposition to Hapsburg domination followed under the leadership of Garibaldi and the House of Savoy, resulting in the 1860s with the ruling princes of northern and central Italy being deposed. In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy became the first King of Italy, and a capital was established at Florence.

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