The return of Silvio Berlusconi: Is the euro in trouble again?

Mr. "Bunga Bunga" is back

Silvio Berlusconi: The once and future prime minister?
(Image credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy, just doesn't seem to get the hint. Mere months after Berlusconi was publicly shamed by a fraud conviction, this weekend his People of Liberty party withdrew its support for Berlusconi's successor, Mario Monti, forcing new elections in February in which Berlusconi will try to return to power. The prospect of Berlusconi's resurrection drew barely suppressed cries of "Mamma mia!" in capitals across Europe, with many fearing he could derail a slate of belt-tightening reforms Monti had pushed through to shore up Italy's finances. Berlusconi has been accused of a lot of things — including having sex with an underage prostitute and engaging in numerous acts of corruption — but now commentators are beginning to suspect that he's not even human, say Carsten Vokery and Philipp Wittrock at Germany's Der Spiegel:

Italy's least serious politician is back. And Europe is groaning in displeasure. The French leftist paper Libération wrote "The Mummy Returns," a reference to a 2001 movie of the same name. And the otherwise dour German radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk noted, "It is like a horror film: The undead keep coming back."

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Ryu Spaeth

Ryu Spaeth is deputy editor at TheWeek.com. Follow him on Twitter.