How Poland and Hungary bent Merkel over the EU budget
Compromise on the regulation for the protection of the EU budget after the niet of Hungary and Poland: for Italy a lesson on how to negotiate in Europe. The in-depth study by Giuseppe Liturri
There are two issues to comment after the European Council and the Euro Summit last Thursday and Friday:
- President Giuseppe Conte's definitive go-ahead for the reform of the Mes and the hope that the sun of the future can lead to the completion of the Banking Union.
- A compromise on the issue of the regulation for the protection of the EU budget, improperly linked to the rule of law, with a seriously distorting simplification of the facts, as we will explain later.
A quick hint about the first point just to say that, for the first time, Conte came to Europe with a full mandate from Parliament. Unfortunately, this mandate is an invitation to negotiate suicide (as explained in detail here ), because it makes us swallow the bitter morsel of the ESM reform without having any counterpart. If not the smoky promise that the Conference for the future of Europe will redesign tools such as the Stability Pact, the Fiscal Compact and the MES itself. Ignoring, however, that on these issues we present ourselves without bargaining power, without alliances, and on positions diametrically opposed to those of the German bloc. Not to mention the completion of the Banking Union, an issue on which the German willingness to consider the holding of government bonds by banks as relatively risky looms large. With the imaginable negative consequences for Italian banks and other financial institutions which hold 37% of the securities currently in circulation.
But the sensational theme, neglected by all the big media which, evidently, have little or no desire to read the official documents , is the second.
Poland and Hungary demonstrated to all the other countries how to negotiate and win in the EU: "A brigand, brigand and a half" , the late President Sandro Pertini would have said.
These two countries had been put with their backs to the wall, having had to undergo the now imminent adoption of a "Regulation for the protection of the Union budget" by qualified majority, and they reacted as it should be done during a negotiation: by not offering the other cheek, but threatening to blow themselves up together with the whole European Union, blocking the multi-year budget 2021-2027 (to which the 750 billion EU Next Generation is connected) and the Decision on Own Resources (i.e. how to find the money to finance it). And they won.
These are the facts that no one has told you in these days, going so far as to overturn the reality, as did the President Conte who declared that " we have not renounced any of our principles, we have reaffirmed the principle of the rule of law and we have not touched the regulation on budget conditionality ".
Yes, it is true, that Regulation has not been formally modified . But there are no less than 3 pages, out of 13 of the conclusions of the European Council, dedicated to making fundamental clarifications on the scope of activation of that Regulation, effectively weakening it and postponing its enforceability for a long time. These conclusions have also been validated by the Council's legal services . Does it mean something, or not? These are political commitments, not legally binding, because the European Council has no legislative power but only " defining political orientations and priorities " (art. 15 TEU). But that weigh like a boulder on the effective operation of that Regulation.
In a nutshell, the political agreement specifies that the objective of the Regulation is to protect the Union budget from episodes of fraud, corruption and conflict of interest, and this must be done in " full respect for the national identity of the Member States inherent in the their fundamental political and constitutional structure " . There are no other reasons for activating this regulation. Themes such as the independence of the judiciary (on which in Italy we could have a lot to be forgiven, in light of the Palamara affair), remain in the background but the list of cases that determine the sanctions (suspensions or withdrawal of funds) are only those related the principles of sound financial management listed above.
To be sure that things proceed in this way, Poland and Hungary (whose GDP is just over half of the Italian one, just to get an idea of the relative dimensions) have obtained that the Commission will elaborate application guidelines, against the which will be allowed an appeal to the European Court of Justice and only after the outcome of this appeal (which Hungary and Poland will make at the speed of light), will it be possible to apply it concretely. Ultimately, for the next two years there will be no leaf on the subject.
For greater scruple, the minutes of the Council with which that Regulation will be adopted will contain a declaration containing all the details of the political agreement reached on Friday.
The confirmation of the analysis outlined above comes sensationally by reading George Soros and Sergio Fabbrini , both in the Sole 24 Ore , respectively on Saturday and Sunday.
The reaction of the first is really broken, angry, coming to define Poland and Hungary as " rogue states " and explicitly accusing Merkel of having succumbed to their blackmail. “ The worst of the possible scenarios, ugly, and which scoffs at the wishes expressed by the European Parliament ”.
The political scientist of Luiss, thus also admitting the victory of Budapest and Warsaw, is hiding behind the argument of the legal ineffectiveness of the conclusions of the European Council. Strange that a person of his level does not know that the political will expressed in those places is always translated into legally binding acts. Ultimately, at least before a court. O Fabbrini believes that this kind of conclusions are binding only when the Eurogroup (another European institution that does not legislate) adopts them and are of a certain type (for example they destroy the Greek economy), and not when the Council adopts them European that gathers all the government leaders?
Perhaps Fabbrini was afraid to demonstrate how effectively the interests of his country are defended in Europe, something that we have given up doing for some time, in the name of an obtuse and prone ideological adhesion to everything that comes to us from Brussels?
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/come-polonia-e-ungheria-hanno-piegato-merkel-sul-bilancio-ue/ on Sun, 13 Dec 2020 19:47:04 +0000.