Italy's radical Matteo Renzi gets Obama and Cameron on side

Vow to reduce bloated government and decision to sell off car fleet gets Italians behind Renzi, too

140402-obama-renzi.jpg

IS IT TIME to start taking Italy’s fresh-faced prime minister, 39-year-old Matteo Renzi, seriously?

After last week's whirlwind visit to Rome by US President Barack Obama (who, on visiting the Colosseum, commented - wince – "This is bigger than some current baseball stadiums") and yesterday's summit at 10 Downing Street (where David Cameron remarked: "Is it just me, but are prime ministers getting younger all the time?") the gutsy ex–mayor of Florence is putting his political career on the line to cut his country’s bloated government.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Andrea Vogt is an Italy correspondent for TheWeek.co.uk, based in Bologna. Her books include Common Courage, about white supremacist extremism in the US, and a collection of European true crime stories published by Rizzoli.