Italy and European Union at the time of ESM

Giuseppe Conte, Italian President of the Council of Ministers

Rome [ENA] The COVID-19 health and financial crisis has brought about disruption to the path Europe had set out for itself to become braver, greener and fairer. In Italy political decision makers are trying to think about what will happen in the future and plan for these events, or rather are forced to plan the next election: the regional elections. Two relevant facts in the two main sides, majority and opposition, are setting

the pace for the future. Among the parties that support the government, the news is the recent meeting between Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the secretary of the Democratic Party, Nicola Zingaretti. The meeting did not solve the heaviest issue in the coming weeks, the decision to be taken by the government on the ESM, the European Stability Mechanism. The Democratic Party is in favour of ESM while a wing of the 5 Star Movement is ardently opposed to it.

The President of the Council of Ministers Giuseppe Conte's waiting line in front of this issue seems to have prevailed. But on some points, starting from the regional elections, Zingaretti has collected a willingness on the part of the premier to push for the alliances between the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party. So Giuseppe Conte, with one move, reassured the Democratic Party and strengthened its political role. It would be sensible for Italian government to carry out research at European level into new models. In fact, the European Commission’s proposal for the next multiannual EU budget and its ambitious recovery plan will not only ensure that Europe overcome the crisis but prepare it at the same time to be

Chancellor Angela Merkel

more resilient for the next ones to come. The crisis also constitutes an opportunity to make the EU fit for the future by implementing reforms and investing in the green and digital transformation of its economy and society. In this scenario Angela Merkel's Germany has never been so strong and, at the same time, so European. Among the liberal democracies it is the country that has resisted Covid19 better, thanks to a decade of prudent investments in healthcare (German hospitals are the ones with the greatest potential patient / intensive care ratio available) and to a management that is not erratic at all or irrational (the chancellor is a trained chemist after all);

after years of Schwarze null policy, the zero debt so defended by Wolfgang Schaeuble, the government has launched a € 750 billion plan to support the economy which includes, among other things, the nationalization of some valuable pieces of the German industry, such as Lufthansa. Europeans look to Angela Merkel and her presidency for two fundamental challenges, intimately linked to each other: the negotiation on the Recovery Fund and the one, no less important, on the new multiannual budget. If the former represents the main novelty of these months, the latter fits into that vast catalog of European jargon difficult to understand and even more to explain.

As a rule, negotiations on the new seven-year programming are fierce given that each country has just two priorities, either to take as much as they can or try to give very little to the others. Covid19 and the inclusion in the discussion of the Recovery Fund has swept away this approach primarily thanks to Angela Merkel who spurred by Italy, France and Spain has isolated the so-called " penny-pinching " countries of Northern Europe, openly siding in favor of recovery bonds and new solidarity instruments managed by the Union.

It was a surprise for all which, however, fits fully into the style and idea that Angela Merkel has of leadership; already a few years ago when she came to welcoming millions of Syrian refugees, the chancellor had the strength - even against her party - to break old alliances in the name of a higher ethics. Today, in the same way, the most powerful woman in Europe (and perhaps in the world) has understood that Covid will be the the most meaningful test bench on which future generations will measure the foresight of those who today find themselves as decision makers.