(CNN) -- The eurozone crisis has truly engulfed Italy -- but is it because the country is insolvent or simply unable to access funds easily in the financial markets? If Italy is solvent, a distinction can perhaps be drawn between it and the countries surviving on bailout funds from Europe and the International Monetary Fund -- Greece, Portugal and Ireland. The solution, in this case, would be for the European Central Bank to provide cheap liquidity -- loans, effectively -- to the Italian government for a limited period of time. The markets would then be pacified and the crisis would begin to be resolved.
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Costas Lapavitsas is the lead author of a new RMF report 'Breaking Up? A Route Out of the Eurozone Crisis'
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He says the EU's Economic and Monetary Union is probably heading for a break up
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Lapavitsas: The response of the European Union has been a testament to its weakness
Only one word can characterize @placeholder performance during the years of monetary union: stagnation.
The result has been one of the highest national debts in @placeholder, standing at around 120% of GDP.