Italy seeks a revolution as it takes the reins of European Union
Matteo Renzi demands bloc promotes growth, warning Europe is at crossroads and needs to win back people tired of economic decline
As Italy prepares to take over the European Union presidency tomorrow, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has called for a fresh start, insisting growth is essential to quelling anti-EU sentiment.
The energetic left-wing leader has warned that Europe is at a crossroads and needs to win back people tired of years of economic decline or stagnation.
"Europe cannot simply be a place of codicils, quibbles, parameters, constraints... a no-man's land of bureaucracies," Renzi said last week ahead of a meeting of EU leaders in the Belgian town of Ypres, a bloody first world war battlefield.
Boring old aunt Europe has become submerged by numbers
"Thousands of young people did not die so that we could wrangle over parameters," he said. The "boring old aunt" Europe had become, "submerged by numbers and without soul", risked missing "a historic chance for change".
Renzi, 39, who took power in February after ousting his predecessor for failing to boost growth in recession-hit Italy, has a strong mandate in Europe after his centre-left Democratic Party won a resounding victory in May's European Parliament elections.
But he said the electoral fortunes of anti-EU parties in countries such as France, Britain and Denmark showed a level of anger over austerity that was "much more serious and significant that we can possibly imagine".
Renzi, whose country has a public debt at more than 135 per cent of GDP - the second largest in the eurozone after Greece - has joined forces with France in calling for fiscal flexibility in exchange for structural reforms.