Europe cannot live on constraints and parameters alone. To say so, the next day the opening of Merkel to the hypotheses of greater flexibility, is the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, in the course of communications to the Chamber in view of the European Council of 26 and 27 June and on the programmatic lines in preparation for the six-month Italian presidency of the Council of the European Union.
“It is symbolic – declared the prime minister – that the first EU council after the elections has its seat in a place where there was a lot of fighting, namely Ypres. A symbolic place also because in addition to the commemoration it reminds us of what Europe can be. Europe cannot simply become the middle ground of norms, the victims of the Second World War did not die for us to fight over a codicil”.
However, this does not mean questioning compliance with the rules: “Someone in here will be sad, many have asked us 'let's change them or violate them'. We respect them but there is a way and a way”.
Renzi then recalled how, during the last semester of the Italian presidency (It was 2003) France and Germany asked to go over the 3%: "We are not asking to violate the 3% rule unlike them but like Germany at the time but we want to stop seeing them as a list of recommendations, like the shopping list that we get caught up in every time and seems to be the to-do list that transforms the EU into a boring old aunt who gives us homework to do".
"We cannot continue – continued Renzi – to live in a Kafkaesque logic whereby the EU activates an infringement procedure because we have not paid the debts to companies and at the same time prevents you from paying those debts with the stability pact".
The prime minister also sets a time frame for carrying out the reforms: "At the end of a thousand days we will present a country capable of carrying out the reforms that others have done, for example Germany since 2003: we do not want to change the economic rules in Europe but we ask for a exchange between the reforms and the use of already contained margins of flexibility, already available to the member countries”.
A thousand days, therefore, to change Italy. Renzi proves to be confident, so much so that he challenges Parliament: "You can send us home tomorrow morning". Three years, to improve the country, to bring Italy back to being Italy: not having the agenda dictated by an external entity, carrying out the reforms because they are necessary, not because there are taxes".
Finally, for Renzi, it is time for Europe to start talking seriously about growth, also because "There is no stability if there is no growth, and that is why European economic policies have failed in recent years".
