Italian elections stoke euro crisis fears

With the elections in Italy throwing up no clear winners and the prospect of a long period of political uncertainty looming over the euro zone's third-largest economy, an uneasy calm in European financial markets has given way to heightened fears over the future of the currency union.

Democratic Party head Pier Luigi Bersani yesterday said his party would try to form a government in Italy.

According to commentators, the elections have also emphasised the power of opposition to the euro-zone crisis managers' austerity-first solution stemming from the ballot box.

According to Charles Grant, director of the London-based Centre for European Reform, democracy was the Achilles' heel of the euro zone.

While three polls last year - a referendum in Ireland on new fiscal rules and elections in the Netherlands and Greece gave a thumbs up to the eurozones political leaders, Italy gave a massive thumbs down by rejecting the country's traditional political class and the austerity many Italians saw as being imposed on them by Brussels and Berlin.

According to Grant, the euro was not safe until growth returned in Southern Europe.