FLASH
Shkruar nga Massimo Giannini
Seeking a pact with Merz doesn't bring us much, except for the Melonian lack of respect for the enemy Macron and the "Bolshevik" Sanchez...
We thought it was a “locomotive,” but instead it was a wagon. The new Rome-Berlin axis, purged of any reference to the tragedies of the ninth century, is little more than a paraphrase of Troisi’s old film.
Prime Minister Meloni sold it as a major difference between the two largest countries of the Old Continent, as is always supported by the usual cameras and keyboards. Chancellor Merz put a good face on a bad game, but then he began to weave the usual thread with Macron and, above all, at the Munich Conference the next day, to cast a harsh anathema against the Sheriff of Washington.
What remains, then, of the summit celebrated in the luxurious Teutonic castle? What can change the lives of us European citizens for the better? Once again, the gap between appearance and substance seems insurmountable. We promise storms, but we sow only wind.
Trump's America is suffocating us with taxes and the military-industrial-digital combination. Xi's China is holding us back with exports, the devalued renminbi and rare earths. Putin's Russia threatens us with gas wars and bombs in Ukraine. Crushed between empires, Europe continues to wander in its labyrinth, suspended between a "Monnet moment" and a "Pangloss moment".
There is no statesman from the Union who does not say "let's do it soon". If only they could tell us what to do. We are the largest market in the world, with 450 million consumers. We are the largest importer/exporter of goods and services, worth 3.6 trillion dollars. We are the first trading partner for more than 70 countries.
While the heads of government in Alden Biesen make brief allusions to the universe, in Vienna Isabel Schnabel on behalf of the ECB explains to us that Europe, despite all its shortcomings in competitiveness, remains one of the happiest countries on the planet: in terms of quality of life, social protection, public education, infrastructure, environment.
A child born in Spain or Italy has a life expectancy of 5 years higher than a child born in the United States. The mortality rate among the poorest Europeans is the same as that registered among the richest Americans. Despite this great potential, we are reducing the known structural lag. We have no common debts or defense, we have no raw materials or high-tech and artificial intelligence colossuses, we have no fiscal discipline or harmonized industrial policies. In the last year of geostrategic crises we have lost 10% of energy production and 15% of technology production.
In the global and post-Western chaos, accelerated by the architect of chaos in the White House, we must immediately do what Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi, authors of two of the most highly regarded and unheard of reports in European history, suggest.
On the one hand, we need to build a legal “environment” capable of truly uniting the 27 markets that have existed so far. On the other hand, we need to launch the blessed Eurobond to finance these projects, continuing with the method of strengthened cooperation that from 1990 onwards made the birth of the euro possible.
It is Dragoi's model of "pragmatic federalism": a two-speed Europe and the reforms made to those who are part of it. Where we adopted it, as in trade and currency, we brought home bread. Where we avoided it, as in defense and industrial policy, we only received slaps in the face.
The Italian-German pact and the Union of "variable geometries", which we have seen materialize in the fog of Flanders, are going in exactly the opposite direction. And they are causing double damage. First of all, there is a damage to Europe itself: if in the face of the criticisms of the phase the answer is the relaunch of the nation states, then we are once again facing a disease that is sold as a cure. Instead of dividing, we fragment even more, as required by the doctrine of sovereign right: those who govern (FDI, Lega and the Hungarian Fidesz), those who aspire to govern (Afd and the National Assembly) and those who will never govern (like Vanacciano's National Future and the neo-Francoist Vox).
We too could succumb to this trend, if the current leaders are so short-tempered as to limit themselves to minimal objectives: another crackdown on the Green Deal and the electric car, a crackdown on the issuance of “ecological” titles to polluting companies, and a crackdown on hyper-regulation of companies. But then, the sick person simply takes a nap, and we will see you all again in the spring on the summit of Tolosa. This is not what we need, to still believe in the beautiful dream of Ventotene.
Then there is damage to Italy.
Seeking a pact with Merz does not bring us much, except for the Melonian lack of respect for the enemy Macron and the "Bolshevik" Sanchez. Germany is asking for a waiver of state aid within the community limit, to support German industry that is causing recession: The Chancellor has space in the budget and can afford it.
Italy, on the other hand, cannot spend a single penny: it is still waiting to exit the procedure due to excessive deficit. Germany rejects new forms of debt mutualization. If Rome and Berlin had convinced Brussels to attack the Leviathan of the community bureaucracy, we would not have solved many problems. Administrative barriers to internal traffic amount to customs tariffs of 96% for services and 67% for goods.
But it is very easy for Von der Leyen to answer Meloni that a large part of the obstacles to the market are self-created: we are forever the Belcountry of taxis and beaches, of hydroelectric yields and highway concessions, of direct reliance on local public transport and waste management.
We can curse Maastricht as long as we want: but if we have the absolute record for the price of electricity, 115 euros per megawatt, compared to 89.3 euros in Germany, 65.2 euros in Spain, 61 euros in France and 49 euros in Finland, it is not the fault of the EU Commission. It is only our fault, that we are still paying mysterious "inappropriate" and "systematic" burdens.
Next week the government will announce another legal decree, to the benefit of families affected by the cost of electricity: an extraordinary contribution of 90 euros, obviously a single contribution.
Another hot mess, which solves nothing, but reflects the hypocrisy of this patriotic, autarkic and Eurosceptic Italian. The old story of the Enel tax collector, who enters the house of two elderly people and shouts: stop everyone, this is a bill. / Adapted from "Pamphlet" by "La Repubblica"
Si mind të pra no het ne tryeze kjo sy pordhe shemture si nga surrati dhe nga mendja e morali!? Edhe ne Gjader nuk ka karrike për të.