Brussels, 28 June 2024 – You have present the smiles, the grimaces, the natural empathy shown by Giorgia Meloni and the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during the G7 in Puglia? If the United Kingdom was still in theEuropean Unionthat ostentatious harmony would have been an excellent card for Italy in Brussels Risk. And instead the Italian Prime Minister in the European capital had to face Emmanuel Macron with which – the images of the G7 always testify – the mutual coldnessto put it mildly. She accuses him of using the Apulian stage for internal elections, he does nothing to mend fences. Old grudges resurface.
Meloni vs Macron
Among Melons and Macron, the Alps are not enough to paint the separation. There are distant styles, ideas, expectations and interests, even opposing ones. The natural coldness has worsened during the negotiations for the EU summits, not only for personal reasons, but above all because Rome and Paris in the case of the Commission they are interested in the same matters. And they share the same problem: the infringement procedure for excessive debt. Negotiating debt reduction by also leveraging a wealth of “gratitude”, real power and political weight is useful, indeed, vital.
The Power of the Commissioners
The 27 commissioners are given different portfolios: one is not as good as the other. Italy and France have already kept the economic portfolio (Gentlemen in the last Commission and before him Pierre Moscovici) but in this round they would both have aimed (according to the Financial Times) at the chair of vice president with heavy responsibilities in the fields of commercial policy, competition and industrial policy. The latter is a sector linked to the defense industrial strategy, one of the issues of the next Commission.
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The fragile majority. Von der Leyen towards the encore. But it will be a slalom between vetoes and snipers
The European Commission Last February he said in Germany that Europe needs a specific delegation on defence. But defense is up to the states, the industrial policy that supports it could instead find space in one of the portfolios. The French Thierry Bretonclose to Macron, has managed European industrial policy for the past 5 years and has become increasingly interested in defense after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And yesterday with a blitz Macron confirmed that his choice is still Breton.
Weak leaders
“Macron and Meloni both want to appear as leaders of the new phase of Europe, but both are fragile,” he noted in the FT Gilles Gressani, director of Le Grand Continent. Macron’s fragility is his weakness in the face of The pen and Bardella who could win the elections next Sunday. Meloni’s weakness until yesterday was to lead a European political group (the conservatory) for years left out of the ‘good living room’ of Brussels by the alliance between the EPP, socialists and liberals. A choice that the same good living room knows that today it could pay dearly, and make Europe pay for it. This is why we must find a way to at least recover the support of the Italian “conservatives” and thus guarantee a safe vote for von der Leyen.
Rush and voting in France
“Dare a test of unity from the beginning would have been desirable – says Antonio Villafranca, vice president for research at ISPI –, we could have been more inclusive in the selection mechanism without this affecting the appointments”. Perhaps the rush in wanting to conclude the agreement had been imprinted by Macron who feels the internal vote. It is not possible to say for sure. “But the popular ones, starting from Weber, they had hoped for involvement, external support, of the Reformists and conservatives”, observes Villafranca. A real entry into the majority would be impossible for the wall of socialiststhe no of a good part of the liberals and the stomach aches of some popular. But Meloni’s “involvement” is useful, of course. “It is not in the interests of either Italy, France or Europe that Rome stays out of the picture,” Villafranca points out. In Brussels it is known that the harshness of relations between Meloni and Macron cannot weigh on the Ursula majority who fears the votes of the snipers in Strasbourg. A Commission without confidence would dangerously put Europe in crisis vis-à-vis America, Russia and China.
