The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky will be in Brussels today for the first time since the invasion of Russia began a year ago, to speak in person to EU heads of state and government, who are meeting for an extraordinary European Council focused on economic and migration issues. The details of the visit, which few confirm outside the notebook but which no one denies and which was explicitly confirmed tonight by the Ukrainian president himself, are not yet clear, but it is known that he will probably also go to the European Parliament, to speak to MEPs, as well as to the Advise. On the sidelines of the summit, Zelensky – yesterday morning in London and in the evening in Berlin where he saw Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz – should meet bilaterally with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The summit will begin in the morning and should not be opened, as is tradition, by the speech of the president of the European Parliament, because Roberta Metsola will be busy in the Chamber. She will probably give her speech to the leaders after the summit. While no operational changes are foreseen from tomorrow’s Council on arms supplies to Ukraine, it is likely (“it is something that can be expected”, says a senior EU official), that Zelensky will ask leaders to supply him with planes to help him defend against Russia. Leaders in the conclusions will welcome the progress made by Ukraine in reforms made under the EU accession process and aim to approve a tenth package of sanctions against Russia by February 24, the start date of the Russian invasion.
Package which will include further ‘listing’ of persons and entities, as well as new export bans to Russia. The heads of state and government will reaffirm their support for Ukraine, including military support, and will discuss the issue of Russia’s frozen assets, with the aim of using them to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine. It is not a simple thing from a legal point of view, but it is thought to manage the frozen assets (something like 300 billion euros) in order to use the yield obtained to help Kiev. Also on the table is the issue of accountability, i.e. how to make Russia pay for what it has done in Ukraine.
The heads of state and government will also discuss economic issues, in particular how to ensure that the EU can respond to the US Inflation Reduction Act, which subsidizes green industry and which consequently attracts businesses, including from Europe. President Joe Biden, explains a European diplomatic source, said that this was not the “intention” of the US, but “some American players have very clear intentions. We need to agree at the level of political decision-makers”. The compromise that seems to be taking shape at EU level is twofold, in the short term.
On the one hand, the green light is given to a revision of the EU regulatory framework on state aid, which benefits the stronger states, which will be able to subsidize their businesses more easily in certain sectors and for a specific (but not short) time : the Commission has proposed until the end of 2025). At least fifteen Member States have asked for limits to be set, in the language of the conclusions, on the scope of the revision of the framework and the Commission itself, bearing in mind the risks, has expressed itself in this sense.
On the other hand, given that there are far from negligible resources on the table that have not yet been spent, states with shallower pockets, such as Italy, should obtain greater flexibility in the use of existing instruments. In the medium-long term, then, the European Council for now “takes note” of the Commission’s intention to propose the establishment of a European sovereign wealth fund, which should be used to finance projects of common EU interest. That “takes note”, “takes note”, could become a “welcomes”, that is “welcomes”, but it is not said. The reference to a re-edition of the Sure model has to date been expunged from the conclusions, due to the clear opposition of the Nordic States, which, before talking about new funds, want those allocated and not yet spent to be used, possibly well (and some Countries have trouble spending).
In the matter of migrations, then, there is no shortage of different positions, but all, or almost all, are now in agreement on one point: irregular arrivals must decrease, because they have returned to too high levels. The Italian line is the traditional one, with a lesser focus on relocations, as in the historical line of Fratelli d’Italia: if done without limit, they become a ‘pull factor’, an attraction factor. The Italian position, which avoids the opposition between primary and secondary movements by explaining that they are linked (without the primary there are no secondary ones), finds the harmony of France, which, even for geographical reasons, has slightly different needs from ours. Countries such as Austria, one of the promoters of this extraordinary European Council, are pressing for barriers to be financed at external borders, especially between Bulgaria and Turkey, with EU funds. The Commission and some countries, some of which are robust, opposes it.
For a European diplomatic source, given that we are not in the presence of a “major migration crisis”, this is a “lexical” question, which can easily be “depoliticised”, given that one thing is a wall, another is, for example, a surveillance system with cameras, for example. For a senior EU official, it is clear that “we risk having this discussion”, also because the Commission has a “political position” on the subject, while EU laws would allow for EU funding of similar structures.
“Many Member States are asking for it – continues the senior official – for now we are limiting ourselves to emphasizing the need to finance these infrastructures”. As far as Italy is concerned, since the country has maritime borders which by their nature do not allow for the building of walls or physical barriers, the aim is to obtain the inclusion in the conclusions of explicit recognition of the specificity of the maritime border, a premise for obtaining further results in the next leaders, perhaps in the orderly management of search and rescue operations at sea.
Another objective, already achieved, is to have in the conclusions the explicit acknowledgment that, since migration is a European problem, it requires European solutions. It seems obvious, but it is not: until recently, explains a European diplomat, as soon as discussions of the internal dimension of migrations began, “three groups of countries” immediately formed: those of first arrival, those of destination and Eastern countries, who said it wasn’t their problem. The use of migrants as a weapon against the EU by Belarus in 2021 at the Polish and Lithuanian borders changed things, making it clear that migration is a European problem, and should be treated as such. The French presidency’s approach of unpacking the pact on migration and asylum and tackling it “step by step” has made it possible to make progress, so much so that the explicit goal is to close the new pact on migration within the first few months of 2024.
Italy is also interested in partnerships with African countries of origin and transit for migrants, using as leverage both the available funds, which are not few, and visa policies, trade preferences, partnerships in education, etc. Not in all cases, but, explains a European diplomat, it happens that we have to deal with countries that “do not cooperate”, in particular on repatriations, which we intend to increase and ‘Europeanize’, where useful, also using Frontex. In these cases, a ‘dosed’ use of the above levers can help convince some capitals to collaborate, even on a politically uncomfortable dossier such as repatriations, which are far from popular in those electorates. The reference to voluntary relocations came out of the conclusions (also because numerically the schemes set up had given negligible results, even if a European diplomat says they are “progressive” mechanisms, which start slowly and then accelerate), in the face of a symmetrical softening on secondary and ‘dublinant’ movements.
At the moment, no formal bilateral agreements between the French president Emmanuel Macron and the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are foreseen, who in any case will probably talk to each other in some way. But a real bilateral meeting is ruled out by a European diplomatic source: “These things don’t happen by chance”, he cuts short. The logistical details of the summit are not yet known: until this morning the goal seemed to be to compress all the discussions into one day, ending up at night. In the letter of invitation to the heads of state and government, released only this evening, the president of the European Council Charles Michel speaks of a summit on 9 and 10 February, therefore over two days. However, the start is set for tomorrow morning at 10.
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