A weak capacity to innovate, a low level of human capital, and a predominant weight of small firms characterised Italy even when its economic growth was rapid and outpaced that of most of the other developed countries.
These questions, such as the consequences of a European energy policy or of different energy policies within each euro area country, different energy mixes, between the use of nuclear power or renewable energy...all these choices have an impact on the structure of relative prices and on convergence or divergence at the heart of the euro area.