A single financial market that “knows how to attract and not waste resources” and “the implementation of the cohesion policies” of the European Union. The future of the Twenty-Seven has an obligatory parable, otherwise it will be retreat and, on some issues, “failure”.
Enrico Letta, former Prime Minister and three times minister, former secretary of the Democratic Party, current president of the Jacques Delors Institute, yesterday in Messina. A meeting at the University preceded by an interview with “Journal”. In April, after seven months of work and hundreds of meetings and talks in all EU member countries (he visited 25 cities), the Report on the future of the Single Market. A table supported by three legs: the green and digital transition; the process of enlargement of the Union, «which must go forward»: accelerate the «co-optation of Albania and North Macedonia», for example, «open doors to Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe which also turns to the North American markets and Africans”; the need to strengthen security in the Union through greater commitment to common defence.
«The Green deal is the heart of the relationship», begins Letta. «The challenge is to accompany it socially: populations and economic systems are either against it or offer resistance. The divisions among the Twenty-Seven are therefore profound. Northern European countries are against making a common debt and not at all willing to invest public resources in the Green Deal. The countries of the Mediterranean basin, and others, are asking for a new Recovery Plan exclusively dedicated to the transition.” How to get out of the impasse? «The only way», says Letta, «to convince» the intransigent «Northern countries is to activate a significant amount of private investments».
On a parallel and closely connected level, there is an aspect that worries the former prime minister: it concerns the fragmentation of the European market, which “only favors the United States”. «Just think», he underlines, «that 300 billion in European savings flow to the USA every year. Thus, in the Old Continent, “a union of savings and investments” is required, as Mario Draghi also claims. Accompanied «by European guarantees aimed at the application of higher interests», attractive and reassuring for investors and savers».
Letta has no doubts on one point, the unavoidable need to finance the transition: «Homeowners, workers in the automotive sector and farmers without adequate support risk “drowning” – the former – or disappearing, the two categories» .
Another strategic chapter is that of defence. «Integration is necessary», Letta adds. «In two and a half years the Union spent 140 billion to militarily support Ukraine, as much as the USA: 80% of these sums, however, ended up in the coffers of the United States, South Korea and Turkey». A “catastrophe” on the employment and industrial level for the EU, a “bingo” for these three countries.
In this context, the economic suffering of our country is clear: GDP growth anchored at “zero point”, 3000 billion in public debt. The crisis that Germany, the locomotive of Europe, is going through and the complex conditions of France in turn have a negative impact on our trade balance.
But is it possible – we ask – that a country like ours, with one of the ten strongest economies in the world, limits itself to a budget maneuver of “only” 25 billion?
Letta admits: «The resources provided are not of extraordinary size, but we have to invest more than 100 billion of the National Resilience Plan. I toured Europe for months, Italy has everyone’s eyes on me. Everywhere they asked me if we would be able to spend these resources and in the right way.” And this is a credibility challenge for the Meloni government.
An executive that is moving towards even controversial reforms: premiership and differentiated autonomy over everything. Enrico Letta doesn’t hide behind mincing words. «What’s the point of the premiership? My opposition is clear. The prime minister can already do everything.” Net of the emergency decree which every Italian government objectively abuses, a further downsizing of the role of Parliament is dangerous. As well as” the review “of the role and prerogatives of the Presidency of the Republic. Our constitutional system”, adds the former prime minister, “is based on the balance of powers. Revisions are possible but be careful where you go to operate.”
AND the judgment on differentiated autonomy is also unequivocal, reform which is the basis of the electoral pact between the League and the Brothers of Italy and on which voices of dissent have also been raised by leading exponents of Forza Italia, above all that of the Calabrian governor Roberto Occhiuto. «It’s a reform», Letta cuts short, «that splits the country. A measure”, against which 1 million 300 thousand signatures have been collected which will trigger a referendum, “crucial for the South”.
Differentiated Autonomy is in a certain sense the litmus test of a national fragmentation which is projected in the European Union on populist and sovereignist tendencies”. Enrico Letta almost chooses a paradox: «We must be sovereignists, but European sovereignists! Fragmentation and selfishness produce neither growth nor development.” Read on the analysis table, he also launches a card: «The right of veto must be overcome in the Union». Which, just think of the use that the Hungarian prime minister makes of it Viktor Orbánbecomes a blackmail lever. Hungary, which some political forces in the Italian government also look up to with admiration, is the country among the Twenty-Seven that has obtained the most subsidies in the ratio between resources granted by Brussels and number of inhabitants. And yet it is recalcitrant.
«The Union will expand», underlines the former Prime Minister, «but the admission of the new countries must be accompanied by overcoming the right of veto».
Letta is a convinced, passionate pro-European. “The future is in the Union”, although the stages and obstacles do not escape him. «Europe is at the crossroads, the obligatory route», the risk is decline if not isolation, tight as we will be in the grip of the giants – both old and new – of the world economy.
