Defense, energy, migration policy … The Italian Prime Minister, former president of the European Central Bank, draws the contours of an enlarged Europe.
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Perhaps it was a habit he took when he was a central banker but one thing is certain, Mario Draghi distills his word sparingly. However, Tuesday, May 3, in front of the Strasbourg Parliament, the Italian Prime Minister was more eloquent than usual and took the time to deliver his vision of Europe.
The Covid-19 pandemic and, even more, the war in Ukraine requires that the European Union (EU) “moves” quickly, began Mario Draghi, before the MEPs. The challenges – economic, energetic, migratory and security – which this conflict has given birth require a response of the twenty -seven to the task, but they must also prepare for the next crises and put Europe in battle order to do face. This is in essence the message of the Prime Minister.
In this context, Mario Draghi calls for a “pragmatic federalism” which would also be a “federalism of ideals”. With each crisis, he summed up, Europe takes an additional step towards integration, it must now take a larger jump, “accelerate the integration process”, to prepare for the upheavals which wait.
Concretely, the ex-president of the European Central Bank (2011-2019) recommends, in terms of defense, the holding of a conference, as soon as possible, so that Europeans coordinate their military efforts. “Our security expenditure is about three times higher than those of Russia, but they are divided into 146 defense systems. The United States only have 34,” he insists. This effort must be accompanied by a foreign policy, the decisions of which would no longer be taken unanimously but by qualified majority, he continued.
“legitimate aspirations”
More structurally, for him, the security of the old continent cannot be conceived if we leave at its door the countries of the Western Balkans, as well as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. “The full integration of countries that demonstrate European aspirations does not represent a threat to maintaining the European project, that is part of its realization,” he said. “We want Ukraine to be part of the EU,” he also insisted, after asking “the immediate opening of membership negotiations with Albania and Northern Macedonia”, be given “A new impetus to negotiations with Serbia and Montenegro” and gave “the greatest attention to the legitimate aspirations of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo”.
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