We took most of our debt during the 1980s, well before the euro. During the 90s we already had to tighten our belt because of the high debt, which we were actually able to reduce, but, instead of investing in the future, we paid lots of money to keep existing industries that had no future here (eg Aluminium smelting, when we have the highest cost of electricity in the EU) and save jobs; for those jobs we couldn't save, we gave early pensions. When the Euro came, Berlusconi his voter base to use it as an excuse to raise prices - making us less competitive - while a very tax evasion friendly policy increased our debt again. In all, we got the the crisis as the most troubled EU economy after Greece - and we're paying the consequences.