Italy can deal with its decline

The political campaign for italian elections is beginning to be very interesting.
Following the article in the Economist that described Italy as bound to slowly decline, Italian major coalitions respond with strong arguments (facts will only matter though).

Both Prodi and Berlusconi (in italian) now claim that they will engage in deep reforms that will involve great sacrifices on the part of the population.

Sadly, this confirms that Italy is going down the slope, and only muscular reforms will be able to invert the trend. Hopefully, however, the stagnant situation will give an incentive to find real solutions to actual problem. If Italy takes this idea seriously, it could lead the rest of European States out of the present European crisis.