M. Monti: It is time for the EU Defense

Reducing the new forces of inequality, addressing the pressures on democracy and its values, strengthening transnational and interregional cooperation and strengthening the complementarity of European policies are the priorities for cohesion policy, the senator of the Italian Republic, former Prime Minister of the Italy and bi-commissioner Mario Monti.

Speaking at the 8th Cohesion Forum as a keynote speaker, he praised those working for cohesion policy, reducing inequalities and greater equality.

He noted that Ursula von der Leyen’s committee was the best “interpreter” and the best at implementing a simple proposal by Jean Monnet: “Europe will be hammered into crises and will be the result of the solutions adopted for these crises.” . In addition, he said he commended the von der Leyen committee for having managed to turn the challenges in the light of Jean Monnet into new answers and further appreciated that he did not respond to these challenges in an improvised way, such as the pandemic.

In the light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he noted that if we go back to the origins of the European venture, the first goal was to prevent a new war in Europe and second, the Treaty on a European Defense Community, to build a common foreign and political policy. rejected in 1954 by France. There were therefore two incomplete policies today, the European Defense Community, “which we are working for today”, and that European policies will be funded from the EU’s own resources, noting that the burden of European resources now falls on annual national contributions. , which did not allow the EU to have a proper budget. “As a result, the EU is a slave to its shareholders, the member states,” he said.

He concluded by saying that after the creation of a budget (Recovery Fund) to deal with the pandemic for the first time – something that was previously cursed – today is the time for the other remaining policy, defense, and stressed that the Ukrainian crisis European Commission and the Council to be bolder. Regarding the importance of the EU, he said that it is something we do not like very much, but those who are not members desperately want to be and noted that the pandemic and the way the European Commission is dealing with it as well as the emergency situation in Ukraine has brought European citizens closer to the European institutions. “It’s time for Europe to take the issue very seriously,” he said.

Source: AMPE

Source: Capital

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