All the European industrial cooperations of Italy and France
What emerged from the meeting in Rome on March 19 between Giancarlo Giorgetti, Minister of Economic Development, and Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of Economy. Enrico Martial's article
At least four elements should be remembered of the meeting in Rome, on March 19, between Giancarlo Giorgetti, Minister of Economic Development, and Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of Economy, Finance and Revival.
The first concerns Europe. Also in the press conference, the problem of the European delay in the launch of the Recovery plan or NextGENEU was raised. Observers note the long lead times of both the European Commission and Member States' ratifications on own resources, which form the legal basis for launching the program. The hope of Brussels, on February 25, was to conclude them by March, faced with only seven countries that had completed the procedure until then.
The question was also raised in the subsequent meeting with the Minister of Economy Daniele Franco , with whom Bruno Le Maire shares the remaining competences of his ministry. France has already started spending by anticipating payments already made for 26 of France Relance's 100 billion. Listeners thought of our 196.5 billion PNRR, which is still in draft, and thank you again, since it basically stopped. There was also a call for an "unacceptable delay in Europe with respect to the United States", and for their recovery of 1900 billion dollars. Finally, it should be recalled on the sidelines that Minister Giorgetti seemed pragmatically operative in the development and growth "policies" of member states within the European Union, compared to the anti-European tones of the League in Giuseppe Conte's first yellow-green government.
The second theme concerns the sectors of industrial cooperation between Italy and France that the two ministers spoke of, centered on European autonomy and therefore in the more general process of regional deglobalization. It is about space and launchers, with a European road map and a working group. Then there is hydrogen, with projects between Italian and French companies, including intermediate and SMEs: the entire supply chain is the object of cooperation, from electrolysis to valves, from tanks to fuel cells. This is followed by the topic of microelectronic components, with Europe too dependent on Asia, and it is meant by China, with a background on Huawei and security issues. Finally, the sector of medical technologies, including treatments and biotechnologies, must be increased considering the extra-European dependence that emerged during the pandemic.
The third theme concerns the European framework for Italian-French cooperation. There is a request to the Commission to launch programs by 2021 for each of these themes: space and launchers, hydrogen, electronics, biotechnology and biomedical. Secondly, we think of Germany, because the framework of the bilateral Italy-France has often been linked to the trilateral, as it was for Industry 4.0. We can read both the underlying French concern about its delay with respect to the other side of the Rhine, and the need to maintain an overall European involvement – therefore beyond the first engine of the trilateral towards all the other Member States – in order to face global competition.
The fourth element to remember concerns the Stability and Growth Pact. Minister Le Maire recalled it essentially in the same terms as Prime Minister Mario Draghi, namely that the stability of public finances is fundamental, but growth must come first. This is the lesson learned from the 2010-2011 crisis, when growth was halted by the struggle to rebalance public finances.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/tutte-le-cooperazioni-industriali-europee-di-italia-e-francia/ on Sat, 20 Mar 2021 10:40:10 +0000.