The improvement in financial market sentiment since European Central Bank president Mario Draghi promised last summer that the ECB would “do whatever it takes” to protect the 17-nation currency bloc had been palpable.

Government bond yields fell in the troubled periphery; the threat that Greece would leave receded. But Europe has now been plunged into a fresh period of uncertainty. Italy's comprehensive anti-austerity vote and the rising chorus of rebellion from the citizens of Greece and Spain pose a new threat to euro stabilisation.