Another interpretation is that Italy historically had run its economy on the basis of periodically devaluing the currency to maintain international competitiven

Another interpretation is that Italy historically had run its economy on the basis of periodically devaluing the currency to maintain international competitiveness. Not the "correct" way to do things but it worked for them. Joining the Euro stopped Italy from devaluing but they didn't change the way they ran their economy (for good reasons - doing so would have been very very hard) to avoid the need to devalue coming again; and 2008 was the first time this bit them.