by Marco Galluzzo
The Prime Minister in Washington: Moscow is no longer invincible. Bring the conflict to an end without impositions in Kyiv. The visions of the EU and the United States are changing
Washington Moscow and Washington need to talk to each other again. In order to think about building a negotiating path for peace, the two superpowers must resume and reactivate at all levels the contacts that have been broken since the beginning of the war. Mario Draghi says it clearly, even defying the wind that is blowing in the American government these hours. But that doesn’t seem to interest him, he even talks about the effort to sit down at the table, an effort that all parties must make, especially the United States and Russia.
The hope
The day after his visit to the White House, the Prime Minister recounts the details of the meeting with the President of the United States. And in the first place he goes back to the encouragement, or perhaps it would be better to say the hope, that he gave to the American government. Apparently, the message contains a corollary: any negotiation must strive for a peace that Ukraine wants, not imposed, not dictated by the interests of any particular or other allies. an argument that Draghi wanted to share with Biden, which starts from a double premise. First, the visions of Europe and the United States are not at odds, they are changing. So slowly diverge. The second: at the beginning of the war it seemed that there was David and Goliath and a desperate resistance from David, but now there is no Goliath, conventional Russian power turned out to be not invincible. For Draghi, the need for negotiations, for a negotiating table, stems from these data, and from the fact that Putin no longer has clear goals, he no longer has the great advantage he thought he had at the beginning.
look into the future
The reaction of the Americans has been rather cool so far, even the spokesman for the White House pointed out immediately after the visit that the Russians do not want peace at the moment and that the war will last for a long time. But for our head of government, who is making it clear that he is the bearer of a message from a good chunk of the EU, these are not comments that contradict the necessary diplomatic effort, an effort that must not forget the past but look to the future without thinking about who won and who lost, because the concept of victory in these cases I don’t even know if it makes sense. If anything, the prime minister adds, it can only be Zelensky who decides whether or not to win for them. And in this context, I also told Biden that we must immediately start thinking about a plan to rebuild Ukraine, a plan that will also require efforts from the entire European Union, and we will do our part.
military spending
Draghi also addresses other issues. The EU’s military spending is one of the most sensitive, also domestically. A European conference is needed for the prime minister to address the issue of duplication of the Union’s military spending. It is not possible for us to spend three times as much as Russia, for Europe to have more than 140 different weapons systems, when the United States has them. only 36. A rationalization effort that needs to be made before increasing military spending on defense in individual European states.
Another issue where there has not been perfect harmony with Biden is international forums, such as the G20, in which Russia participates. The next summit will be held in Indonesia, and the Americans have already announced that they will not attend if Moscow is present. Draghi doesn’t think so: on the one hand, we are all tempted not to sit at the same table with Putin, but we have to think before leaving an important forum, and I think it’s important to have a common European position.
The other dossiers
Finally, Draghi also responds to other dossiers discussed during his visit to the White House: Biden agrees to introducing a price cap, a concept we share, but he’s more interested in oil, we’re more interested in gas. With oil, the idea is to create a cartel of buyers, we’re thinking about it, or persuade OPEC to increase production. On the other hand, we fully agreed that the energy market is not working properly at the moment, with prices detached from production costs and with distortions that started well before the war broke out.
Hence the economy. Just before he received Draghi, Biden gave a speech on inflation and tried to calm Americans down. Even as an economist and former central banker, Draghi still rules out a recession, I don’t see it just around the corner, inflation is a huge problem here, and given the overheating of the economy, interest rates have to be raised, price increases are also a problem for us, but we will certainly protect the purchasing power of poorer families.
ecological change
Finally, a passage on the ecological transition, also underway thanks to the funds of the European Recovery Plan: any decision on energy sources must in no case be at the expense of investments in renewable energy sources and before other interventions in the energy sector I expect a sharp increase of installations and actual investments in renewable energy. Perhaps also thanks to the change in some permitting rules that the government has just passed.
May 11, 2022 (Change May 11, 2022 | 22:12)
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