Until a few days ago it was to be one of the most important summits in the history of the EU. Now it is instead seen as yet another interlocutory meeting that will kick the ball a little further. The 27 European leaders will meet in videoconference tomorrowto take some steps forward on the principles for creating the Recovery Fund, or they will not make any progress on the contents, pending the formal proposal that the Commission will present on April 29. From the first rumors, President Ursula von der Leyen would be willing to put on the table a proposal of 1,600 billion, that is, a firepower similar to that requested by Italy, France and Spain. At the top, however, the final go-ahead for the three parachutes approved by the Eurogroup seems to be taken for granted, that is, the one for the States (Mes), the one for workers (Sure) and the one for businesses (new EIB).
The President of the European Council Charles Michel knows that he will once again manage two opposite fronts: the North against the South, that is, those who want to use only existing tools such as the EU budget to help the recovery and those who instead want to create those "innovative tools" "which the Eurogroup had previously discussed, without success. Michel does not want to risk putting too divisive subjects on the table, which could keep the leaders busy for long hours without reaching any conclusion, thus giving the image of a Union that always disagrees. For this reason, already at the beginning of the week he began to mediate, calling a five-way mini-summit with the leaders of the two factions: Giuseppe Conte, Pedro Sanchez, Emmanuel Macron on one side, Mark Rutte and Angela Merkel on the other. Already the fact that everyone participated is a sign of thaw, given that two weeks earlier the attempt had failed.
Italy will insist on the need for the recovery fund under discussion at the EU Council of tomorrow to be in the form of non-repayable transfers (grants), and not loans, to "avoid an excessive weight on the public weight of the individual States". Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri says so in an interview with the Financial Times. "The amount of resources borrowed from the Fund on the market should be at least between 1,000 and 1,500 billion" through the issue of "perpetual or very long-term securities".
The President of the Republic hopes that the European solidarity necessary for an economic and social recovery will materialize at tomorrow's European Council. This is what emerged from today's meeting between President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, a meeting dedicated to taking stock of the state of the negotiations between the countries of the European Union to provide answers to citizens on the coronavirus emergency.
