Italian Referendum Result: A Headache for Rome, or for Brussels?

... was against the Senate — to be precise, the Italian Senate rather than the Roman one of old — that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi pitted himself in the 4 December referendum. He was proposing that the Senate change from an influential directly elected legislative body into a primarily advisory ... ... former Green Party leader Alexander Van der Bellen over Norbert Hofer, the far-right Freedom Party’s candidate, in the Austrian presidential election looks more like a one-off exception to the rule than a general pattern. The best reading of this ...