United in support of Ukraine, divided over migrants and state aid. This is how the twenty-seven leaders of the European Union present themselves at the EU Summit to be held on Thursday, February 9 (which may last until Friday), in Brussels. In addition to Ukraine – which will be the opening dossier with the participation of President Volodymyr Zelensky – the heads of state and government, including Giorgia Meloni, are invited to discuss two thorny points on the European agenda. The Commission’s proposal for a Green Deal Industrial Plan, in response to the American Inflation Reduction Act, will have to be balanced between those who advocate a broad easing of state aid rules (see Germany and France ) and those who, also having little fiscal space to create new debts and grant aid, would like greater flexibility in the use of existing European funds and, in the medium term, new funds to be allocated to European industrial sovereignty. Among them is Italy, which has been calling for weeks to maintain the integrity of the Single Market and avoid internal fragmentation that could harm European industry more than American or Chinese competition.
The balance point, reached after days of negotiations between ambassadors and ministers, is to condition the flexibility of state aid. The formula that seems to dissolve the tension is now consolidated with the schemes already adopted for the Covid emergency and the energy crisis: the aid must be “temporary, targeted and proportional”. In the first version of the summit conclusions, only targeted aid was mentioned. In exchange for this openness to the flexibility of state aid, countries with more difficulty in absorbing European funds claim the need for greater flexibility. “This topic, in our opinion, is not marginal because it could concern the possible use of very important resources such as cohesion, Pnrr, not having our autonomous capacity, and which would fit in a flexible use”, he said. explained the Minister of European Affairs, Raffaele Fitto, in a hearing in the commissions of the Chamber and of the Senate in view of the summit. Flexibility would be a short term answer. In the long term, however, the introduction of a European fund for sovereignty will be evaluated. But so far, no one has been able to comment on how this fund will be created. What is certain is that the “frugal” countries insist on the need to use “the hundreds of billions of euros of European funds already available”. new Next Generation Me.
North and South risk being divided even over migrants. Despite the premise this time being “migration is a European challenge to be faced with a European response”. Therefore, no division between first arrival countries and secondary countries, between external borders and internal borders. The core element of the new (the umpteenth) strategy is to tackle the problem at its root: working with countries of origin and transit to prevent departures. So you don’t have to face emergency arrivals. And by cooperation we also mean the use “of all instruments to leverage these countries, from trade policy to visa policy”. Basically, states that collaborate with the European Union, for example by promoting repatriations, will receive better treatment. And vice versa. However, the protection of the external borders continues to be an internal and controversial issue: a group of countries, this time led by Austria, insists with the European Commission on the need to finance the walls (in this particular case we are talking about three thousand million euros to separate Bulgaria from Turkey). The European executive insists on the impossibility of using its own funds to build walls, opening itself up to the construction of infrastructure (which can be towers, video surveillance, drones). The Council, on the other hand, is convinced that the Commission can legally do so and that “every wall containing access points is infrastructure”.
Italy, in particular, does not manifest itself on this point, but invites recognition of the specificity of maritime borders and, therefore, requests greater cooperation for the management of rescues. Also through the code of conduct (or enhanced cooperation) to manage the activities of NGOs. Obviously, the discussion would be complicated if Austria and the Netherlands insisted once again on the responsibility of the countries of arrival in the application of the Dublin rules to curb secondary movements. In this case, Meloni’s Italy would again call for obligatory solidarity in the face of the flagrant failure of voluntary solidarity.
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
