Letta and Sassoli do the bank with Macron and against Merkel?
With the excuse of "no Mes", Letta and Sassoli support Macron in the clash with Merkel to rewrite the EU treaties. The article by Tino Oldani for ItaliaOggi
Angelo Panebianco confessed his Euroscepticism in Corriere della Sera . Unlike the pro-Europeans with no ifs and buts, those convinced that "without the cumbersome presence of the United States, Europe would do very well on its own", he believes that Europe, "once deprived of American protection, would do a lot struggling to walk on their own legs ". Not only that: "In the face of the new geopolitical and strategic situation, the Union is unprepared, whose treaties, institutions and the mentality of those who lead them were forged in another era". Hence the need to rewrite the EU treaties, an undertaking for which «the individual European states are unprepared. With the exception, perhaps, of France (but checks are expected on this) ».
Panebianco thus shows to give credit to Emmanuel Macron, who has been repeating for some time, in controversy with Angela Merkel, that the European treaties must be rewritten, which he recently reaffirmed in an interview with Corriere della Sera , becoming the promoter of a project ambitious, typical of the character: the "Paris consensus". That is, replace the "Washington consensus" with the "Paris consensus". With the first, as defined in 1989 by the economist John Williamson, it is customary to indicate the standard package of economic policy directives to be allocated to countries in crisis or in the developing world, with the endorsement of international organizations based in Washington, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, in addition to the okay of the US Treasury Department.
These directives, in Macron's synthesis, mean: "Decreasing the role of the state, privatizations, structural reforms, opening economies through trade, financialization of economies, all through the monolithic logic based on the creation of profit." These free-market lines, conceived more than 30 years ago in the US, have played a positive role, allowing many poor countries to achieve relative well-being. But now, according to the French president, they are inadequate to cope with new challenges, caused by factors such as: population growth ("the population is growing at an insane rate," says Macron), climate change and the growth of inequalities. that "our middle classes, and a part of the popular ones, have been the adjustment variable of globalization". Hence the need for a radical change, with the adoption of the "Paris consensus", which for Macron means "European sovereignty and strategic autonomy".
With a little exaggeration, backed by the atomic bomb, Macron adds: "We have achieved the Europe of defense, which we thought was unthinkable." Again: "The change of American administration is an opportunity to continue in a totally peaceful and serene way what our allies must understand: we must continue to build our autonomy for ourselves, as the United States does for them, and China. is for itself ".
Needless to say, among "the allies who must understand", Angela Merkel's Germany in first place, which in recent years has always disavowed Macron's intentions to rewrite the treaties, announced with emphasis in the speeches at the Sorbonne ( 2017) and Meseberg (2018). Defessions usually arrived at a distance of some time: sometimes from the chancellor in the first person, with tones that are never polemical, but firm; sometimes by letting ministers or allies of his trust speak. In the latter case, the denial arrived within 24 hours: Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Minister of Defense in Berlin, in an interview with Politico.eu admitted that "the European Union indeed needs more independence" but "for the foreseeable future the United States will remain the most important ally in security and defense policy".
In this scenario of Franco-German confrontation within the EU, it is not at all clear who Italy intends to side with. Certainly, there is that a part of the Democratic Party (obviously unbeknownst to Nicola Zingaretti, who has distanced himself) has already sided with Macron, and it is the one headed by Enrico Letta and David Sassoli, the first teacher at Paris School of International Affairs, the second president of the European parliament. A choice of side implicit in the "no Mes" pronounced by both of them a week ago, with reasons that must be interpreted. When Letta and Sassoli say that the Mes "should be reformed and made a community instrument, no longer intergovernmental", and that its 400 billion "should be transferred to the EU budget, making the common debt definitive", they prefigure a rewriting of the European treaties . Which, Musso rightly observes on Atlanticoquotidiano.it, means agreeing with Macron when he asks to establish a permanent eurozone budget, which is only possible if the treaties are changed.
It is true that such a proposal has always been crushed by Merkel. This time, however, Macron is convinced that the scenario of a "great rupture of capitalism", in which the pandemic, the Recovery Fund, the ESM reform, the stalemate of the EU budget, the divisions on the rule of law, plus the change of power in the White House, is offering him a unique opportunity to turn the EU upside down and rewrite the treaties, with the ambition of assuming, with the "Paris consensus", the leadership of Europe after Merkel, thanks to the pandemic. As for the cancellation of the debt of the states caused by the pandemic, of which Sassoli spoke, time will tell if it was a clumsy mistake, or a calculated stone in the pond. It is true that the EU treaties prohibit debt cancellation, but a Macron-inspired rewrite could reveal that Sassoli said what they think they are doing in Paris, and that in Berlin it is seen as absolute evil, to be prevented at any cost.
Article published on ItaliaOggi
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/letta-e-sassoli-fanno-sponda-con-macron-e-contro-merkel/ on Sat, 28 Nov 2020 06:20:21 +0000.