As you can seen Italy is 'used' to relatively high government debt. Over the 150 years pictured the government debt was on average 81 percent. Only twice during the interval has the government debt been below 60 percent. When the chart starts from 1861 for a few years and after the Second World War until 1982.
The high debt levels that Italy currently faces again was mainly build up in the eighties. In the nineties when Italy had to bring their government debt back down to 60 percent to meet the criteria for introducing the euro it brought debt down by 21 percent. That lowest percentage was 99 percent which Italy had in 1999. Italy adopted the euro in 1999.
|Reinhart & Rogoff|