Yet in September 1992 the British pound and the Italian lira went crashing out of the system.

ECONOMIST: EURO BRIEF: Eleven into one may go | The

He managed to squeeze the Italian lira into Europe's new single currency, by bringing public finances under somewhat better control.

ECONOMIST: Italy

In 2002, EMU countries will use only the euro as their legal tender, and the deutsche mark, French franc, Italian lira et al. will cease to exist.

FORBES: Fact and Comment

The paradoxical fact is that weak currencies (like the Italian lira, in the pre-euro era, and the Turkish lira) often outperform stronger currencies (like the deutsche mark and the U.S. dollar).

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That financial crisis, in the course of which the Italian lira was ejected from Europe's pre-euro exchange-rate system (along with Britain's pound sterling) coincided with a huge political crisis, as corruption investigations brought crashing down the parties that had dominated Italian politics for the past 40 years.

CNN: , Special to

Had it failed, the combination of a political crisis in Rome and global financial trouble would have put the lira and Italian interest rates under heavy pressure, jeopardising Italy's chances of joining the euro at a later date.

ECONOMIST: Italy

Italian corporate scandals are two a lira but corporate clean-ups are few.

ECONOMIST: Italian securities