I'm not sure why you're being downvoted here - I think there is substantial truth to the idea that Italy had historically (under the Lira) run an economic model where it devalued its currency to offset poor total factor productivity growth. Within the Eurozone it is no longer able to do that but has not been able to improve productivity growth rates either.
This leaves lowering wages (at least in real terms) as the pretty much the only remaining way to offset low productivity growth in comparison with its industrial competitors. Unfortunately wages take much longer to adjust downwards because its very difficult to tell people to take a pay cut (over the long term the only way to do it on a large scale is to give low/no pay increases for seniority).
In the mean time, returns on investment fall and one suspects a partial downward spiral has developed as a result, where lower returns attract less capital and less capital investment leads to further poor productivity growth.
This leaves lowering wages (at least in real terms) as the pretty much the only remaining way to offset low productivity growth in comparison with its industrial competitors. Unfortunately wages take much longer to adjust downwards because its very difficult to tell people to take a pay cut (over the long term the only way to do it on a large scale is to give low/no pay increases for seniority).
In the mean time, returns on investment fall and one suspects a partial downward spiral has developed as a result, where lower returns attract less capital and less capital investment leads to further poor productivity growth.