The Italian Prime Minister during a public debate with D’Alema: “Italy does not count for little in the EU, even though years full of failure predictions has lowered its ambitions.” The President of ItalianiEuropei: “A referendum for a possible Eurexit is nonsense.”
“The Prime Minister won’t be a candidate,” because “the idea of proposing his candidacy just to get a 0.2 percent more betrays the ideal of the Democratic Party.” That’s what Renzi said during the presentation of the book “Non solo l’euro” (Not the euro only) authored by his (ex) enemy Massimo D’Alema. With him “I’ve always had a frank dialogue, and I’ve appreciated that, when I was ignored by lots of people because I dared to criticise the legend of D’Alema, he was the only one to talk to me,” said Renzi, even though in the past “when it was a time to fight, we fought.” Now the President of ItalianiEuropei can run for the next European elections, with Renzi saying that the discussion about candidacies will be brought about into the party, and “we will choose the best candidates.”
The two political leaders, during the debate led by Mario Orfeo, talked about Europe and about the necessity of giving the DP a solid electoral line to follow, given that “this is a challenge we can win.” “Grillo can get 22, 25, 27 percent…I don’t care,” said boldly Renzi, “I care about the DP, which is going to be the second group at the European Parliament and will set the pace.”
The debate took place the day after the meeting with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, interested “in the constitutional reforms we want to make more than in the economic ones,” because of the idea that “our country cannot be reformed.” Chancellor Merkel gave particular attention to the reform of the electoral law, “which would have allowed her to govern without a Grand Coalition, had it been applied in Germany.”
Rensi stressed that Italy is not “the last cog in the machine” in Europe, even if “we have been listening for years to people saying we had to be careful not to end up like Greece, and this had shrunk our ambitions, forcing Italy to play an ‘unnatural’ for us.” The thing is, we need “growth” as we are “the only G-20 state that is not growing,” the only thing which increases is “debt-to-GDP ratio, passed from 120 percent to 132 percent” quite rapidly.
“Europe is our destiny,” said D’Alema, States shall understand that “failing the Union, we would count for nothing,” given that “in a few years, there won’t be a Member State able to meet the requirements for being part of the G-8 in terms of GDP.” That’s why we need more Europe, even though a “different” Europe. Stop the fuss about a referendum on the Eurexit, it’s so clear “it is nonsense” said the former Italian Prime Minister, yet acknowledging that “Fiscal Compact and Six Pack impose absurd constraints, especially during an economic crisis.” It is then necessary to “amend” this and other rules because “treaties shall be amended, not breached,” and it will possible only if “we get a critical mass.”
According to D’Alema, rules should be changed for having a governable Europe, as it was in the old times. “With the EU15 European Council, we all came from the same history,” he reminded the audience, “and it was very rare to have someone using its vetoing right,” at the time “it was usual a to express the discontent about the prevailing idea, yet no one forced others not to proceed on their path.” And then things changed, “the Kaczyński brothers arrived, together with others who did not respect these rules,” and the EU “has become impossible to govern.”
Alfonso Bianchi
