Italy is still sick. Its economy has suffered a series of recessions over the past decade. Yet its labour market remains inflexible and deeply uncompetitive; since 2000, Italian labour costs have risen by 45 per cent. Productivity has also stagnated, while rising annually on average by 1 per cent in the eurozone. As a result, Italian exports – from capital goods to shoes – have suffered particularly badly in this slump. Yet Italy also lacks many features of the credit boom that have ravaged other countries. While government debt is scarily high, at more than 100 per cent of output, household and corporate debt is low. Nor has there been much of a housing boom.

This halfway happy result is reflected in the relative good health of Italy’s two biggest banks, UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo. Neither has yet taken government money. Both are funded by large deposit bases. Both are among Europe’s most efficient lenders. And both are still reporting healthy profits. That, though, is where the similarities end. Almost 90 per cent of Intesa’s business is in Italy. UniCredit, by contrast, has sought to escape domestic economic stasis by taking more than half its business abroad. This aggressive foreign expansion, especially into central Europe, has lately taken Unicredit’s share price on a wild ride.