Brussels Plans a Policy Doomed to Fail

As for the policy that the new European Commission intends to implement, its President Ursula von der Leyen has indicated that the it will follow Draghi’s recommendations. She was referring to the report on European Competitiveness prepared by Mario Draghi and presented Sept. 17 to the European Parliament. As we reported last week, Mario Draghi calls for €700-800 billion per year to finance rearmament and the Green transition, to be financed through the issuance of new EU common debt. This will never happen, because the German government opposes it. At most, the EU could succeed in rolling over Next Generation EU funds, but that won’t be enough. Filling the gap through an increased EU budget means increasing taxation on a scale unacceptable to voters.

The Commission will also be forced to make some concessions on the Green agenda, as Mario Draghi himself hinted in his report. The failure of the e-mobility strategy and the threatened bankruptcy of the European auto industry cannot be overlooked by anyone. Better late than never, one might say. On Sept. 20, the European Association of Automakers (ACEA) urged a review of emission targets now to avoid industrial suicide, instead of waiting until 2026 as scheduled, since the new and very stringent CO₂ rules come into force beginning in 2025.

Both German Finance Minister Christian Lindner and Italian Transport Minister Matteo Salvini have backed that call.

On foreign and military policy, however, the new EU Commission is geared to escalation. It was backed by the resolution passed in the European Parliament on Sept. 19, which calls for allowing Kyiv to use long-range NATO weapons to strike deep into Russian territory. However, many members of the new “Ursula majority” were opposed. Notably, both the Italian government and opposition parties voted no, showing a promising unity that could find the courage of a veto, if it comes to a vote in the EU Council.