“Hope for the best but prepare for the worst”. What the European Union is called to do in the face of a story that seems over but is not even remotely so. Certain hatreds do not end, they make huge rounds and then come back. Like Brexit, an unresolved thorn in the increasingly tense relations between Brussels and London. Yes, because as if the commercial chapter were not enough, in recent weeks the Aukus defensive / military pact has also been put in place. between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia which cut off the EU, effectively annihilating the Indo-Pacific strategy and leading to the cancellation of a billion-dollar supply agreement for French submarines in Canberra.
And precisely this, that is, “hope for the best but prepare for the worst” five member countries have asked the European Union, at least according to what the Financial Times reports. The fear is that one can be achieved real trade war between the EU and the UK, a clash with no holds barred. Among the five member states that have asked the EU to prepare a life belt and a there is also Italy, together with France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. The proposal is to come up with a contingency plan that includes tough retaliatory measures should the UK implement its threat to suspend the Northern Ireland trade deals enshrined in the Brexit deal. This hypothesis is not denied even by the EU spokesman for Brexit, Daniel Ferrie, who during the press briefing in Brussels did not deny the rumors reported by the Financial Times. “We have worked very hard on the package we presented on Wednesday, which addresses every possible corner of the protocol. The next step for us is to focus on the discussion that is taking place right now with the UK government, today and in the coming days.”
In these hours, yet another bilateral meeting took place, between the British minister for Brexit and staunch anti-EU, David Frost, and the vice-president of the European Commission, the Slovenian Maros Sefcovic. “The EU has certainly made an effort but obviously there is still a big gap to fill, and we will talk about this today and in the future,” Frost said. But the discussions will also continue in the coming days and weeks. At the center of the question is always the fate of Northern Ireland. The protocol, to avoid the resurgence of a physical border between Ireland, EU territory, and Northern Ireland, non-EU territory (the absence of a visible border is one of the main factors that led to the pacification of the island with the Good Friday agreements), provides for customs controls on goods arriving from Great Britain in Northern Ireland, to prevent that goods enter the single market without controls. On a war footing, as mentioned, Germany seems to be especially explicitly. Suffice it to hear the statements of Michael Roth, German Undersecretary for European Affairs, who argues that Brexit “does not represent a model but” only to follow nationalisms and populisms. “And, as Nova reports, he increased the dose in his speech at the question time” Diplomacy meets the world ” , at the American Studies Center in Rome: “I am sure that British citizens will pay a high price in everyday life. We already see the consequences for the people. The nationalists and populists in Europe who were in favor of leaving the EU have become very silent, because they have had to recognize that leaving Europe does not solve any problems but produces others “.