Don’t even have to go that far back: Italy is massively corrupt with organized crime running parts of the country and with a literal facsist representing them in the EU Parliment(Mussolinis granddaugher in fact). This current prime minister that is being referred to in the post is a self-proclaimed “national conservative”.

And the fact that they kept letting Berlusconi run things is all the proof you need of how corrupt the entire country is(his “controversies” part on wikipedia is so large that it has its own page with 160 citations, he is also connected to the party of the person mentioned above).

But it has some amazing tourist locations and food, so people gloss over that as well.