The Roadmap for the Italian Presidency of the EU
"This time we should celebrate with prosecco, rather than champagne" Chancellor Merkel reportedly said in the occasion of the first EU summit after the European Parliament election of late May.
Merkel wanted to make a toast, because the dire predictions made on the eve on the polls were not fully confirmed: true, euroskeptics obtained an unprecedented 25-30% of parliamentary seats, but this looks manageable as the three major pro-Europe parties (EPP, PES, and ALDE, i.e. Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Liberals) obtained a total of 467 seats, comfortably more than the required majority of 376 at the Strasbourg-Brussels Parliament, thus ensuring political stability.
But the substitution of prosecco for champagne refers to the most important political result sprung out of the ballot box, namely the weakening of the Franco-German axis that has historically guided the European Union. In France, 30% voted for the Front National, while Renzi's party in government gained million of votes. Thus the new strategic importance of Italy in Europe, also reflected by the number of Italian center-left seats in the European Parliament. With the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty, this elective institution is placed at the same level as the European Council (which gathers the ministers of member states), and so it becomes fundamental to command a majority in the chamber to govern the UE. In this respect, the latest vote forces a Grosse Koalition agreement between Christian Democrats (EPP) and Socialists (PES), but the national weights within parliamentary groups have changed: while Germany's CDU maintains its hegemonic role over Continental conservatism, among European Socialists the Italian Democratic Party emerges as the strongest force, getting more seats than Germany's SPD, and thus it will elect the group's spokesperson.
As a consequence, the important political mediation will be the one between Germany and Italy for the duration of the legislature. The start of the six-month Italian presidency of the Union will be an early confirmation of this, putting Italy at the center of the wheeling and dealing to appoint the new President of the European Commission and renew all the top EU positions by the end of the year.
Thus not only Italy now has the weight to influence EU decision-making, but it will be setting the European agenda for the remainder of 2014 as rotating president of the Council. Italy is presently putting forward a reform agenda as conditio sine qua non to give its consent to the new appointments. This is a smart move, because when top positions are vacant not much gets usually done at the European level. Conversely, by putting policies ahead of names, Italy has the historical opportunity of deeply affect the course of European integration in the near future.
What should Italy focus on? Certainly, it needs to complete the establishment of the European Banking Union by drawing a roadmap leading to changes in EU Treaties, so as to also introduce mechanisms of fiscal solidarity within the Union. The starting point could be the introduction of project bonds and the removal of the national co-financing of EU funds from calculations of government deficits. Also, a true EU immigration policy needs to be fleshed out, in order to manage what is increasingly becoming a humanitarian crisis. Finally, reform agreements with member countries need to keep being pursued: governments must be given additional flexibility in reducing debts and deficits, if they commit themselves to a serious and verifiable structural reform agenda.
It these three political dossiers are addressed by December, Italy will have done another tremendous service to the progress of European integration, after the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act (signed when Italy presided the EU), and the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference that paved the way to the Maastricht Treaty.