There is no more time: in front of a world that has already changed, and “does not look at us with sympathy”, Europe must “change” now. Or she is condemned to remain “marginal” and “spectator” as she has shown in front of crises, from Ukraine, Iran, to Gaza. And to the duties imposed “from our ally of ancient date” to which “we had to resign ourselves”. Mario Draghi returns to exploit the limelight of the Rimini meeting to make the European inaction, blocked in its delays and in its “rites”, Short of the “national sovereignty”, of “destroying European integration”, which would only “expose” the old continent even more.
“The 2025 will be remembered as the year in which the illusion of Europe evaporated” to count, the former president of the Council goes down hard from the first words, which returns to the Communion and Liberation event for the fourth time. From the same stage he had already tried to give his recipe for the European redemption, that distinction between “bad debt and good debt” that returns to mention to invite European countries to build “forms of common debt”. The only ones are convinced, able to support “European projects of great amplitude that fragmented and insufficient national efforts would never be able to implement”. It applies to that increase in defense expenses, in turn imposed by Donald Trump.
His election, he says in no uncertain terms, was “a brutal alarm” – not to mention that not even China considers Europe an “partner on par” – and now the task of the 27 is to find the way of “getting along”. To evolve, to overcome the idea that is enough the economic dimension to have “geopolitical power”. In front of “what happens”, a world where there is no more “respect for the rules” but the use of “military strength and economic power to protect national interests”, the first thing that “comes to mind – underlines with a certain transport dragon – is that perhaps the first thing to do is: let’s tighten all together”.
His applauded intervention, and some applause takes place just before, when accompanied by the president of the friendship Meeting Foundation among the peoples, Bernhard Scholz, visits an exhibition at work. He does not allow himself to the assault of the reporters, because then his thoughts on the duties declines it on stage. His is not a “vision” Europeanism, on the contrary, it is “pragmatic, with the feet on the ground”, he says quoting a joke of the former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt (“looking for a vision? Go to the ophthalmologist”) and revealing that in his degree thesis the single currency was even called “nonsense”.
But the European project has proven to be the right response to the needs of the time and today, the way to get out of irrelevance, is to strengthen “integration”, reviewing, its “political organization” because now it is not “equipped” enough to compete in global challenges, remove the barriers, “agree on how to finance the gigantic necessary investments” and “drawing a commercial policy” suitable for the new era. In summary, “finding action units” now, before “the circumstances” become “unsustainable”. For dragons, moreover, we must respond to the “new peaks of skepticism” towards Brussels, which has rules not so much on values, as “on the ability to defend them”. Today there are obsolete rules that make the union “fragile and vulnerable”. But Europe has already shown – AT PNRR – To know how to react and today this “skepticism” is the appeal that launches above all to young people in the audience, it must be “transformed into action: make your voice heard”.