Sunday 4 March looks set to be a crucial date for Europe as Italy holds a general election and Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) announces whether it will form a ‘grand coalition’ with Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc. In Italy, we do not foresee any single party or predetermined coalition winning an outright majority and consequently expect any government to be short-lived and inherently unstable. Such a government is unlikely to implement the structural reforms that the economy requires and we…