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“There are large international funds that are raising money and could jeopardize Europe’s strategic assets: you have to be careful.” When the chairman of the European Parliament Budget Committee, the Belgian Johan van Overtveldt, opens a glimpse of what is happening in the world of global finance in the shadow of the coronavirus, Ursula von der Leyen carefully notes. Van Overtveldt spoke at the meeting of the group presidents of the European Parliament this morning, with the President of the EU Commission present. His words indicate exactly the danger from which the European Union will have to protect itself against the post-virus world: defending itself in the global reorganization of powers that will emerge from the new cold war between the United States and China.
The topic is already present at the discussion tables in Brussels. This morning is also addressed in the conversation between the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, and von der Leyen. The President of the Commission is aware that in order to meet the new challenge, the EU must strengthen itself. Furthermore, since the beginning of his tenure at Palazzo Berlaymont, von der Leyen has set himself the goal of giving his Commission a geopolitical form, and possibly hegemony, overcoming the often conflicting interests between States to privilege interest. . Community. But the reality is still very different from the intentions.
Ever since Donald Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have been furious at China blaming it for alleged negligence and responsibility in spreading the virus “that came out of Wuhan’s labs” (it’s the indictment), the EU has only responded with Your High Representative for Foreign Policy. Josep Borrell announces that “a draft resolution is being negotiated for the WHO World Assembly on May 18” in Geneva, where, among the various points, “the importance of a better understanding of the circumstances that have allowed it was highlighted” . the pandemic to develop. “But, in addition to Borrell, who has been entrusted with what is undoubtedly a ‘hot potato’ in the geopolitical relations of the moment, no other high representative of the European institutions has spoken publicly about the new war between Washington and Beijing.
For now, the Union suffers from it. The virus weakened the large EU-China investment summit scheduled for March and postponed until September 14. However, it will take place in Leipzig, under the German presidency, but the pandemic inevitably lowers expectations and disappoints the European leaders and officials who were working on it. Now concerns prevail, rather than plans.
The approach of many European states to China was also a way, also dictated by economic interests, of “resisting” the Trump phenomenon, son of the same Brexit star: 2016. And the British Secretary of Defense did not escape yesterday in Brussels Ben Wallace He was the only one in Europe to ask China to “clarify”, while refusing to comment on the US president’s allegations.
Now, today, according to The Guardian, the intelligence of the five states of the so-called ‘Five eyes’, the network 007 of EE. The US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand deny that there is evidence that the virus has come out of a laboratory. Chinese. And it’s the second denial of the day for the White House. The first came from virologist Anthony Fauci, the scientific face of the White House task force against the coronavirus: there is no evidence that the virus has been “artificially or deliberately manipulated.” But beyond the accusations and denials, the fact is that a post-coronavirus ‘partition’ war broke out between Washington and Beijing. And the EU runs the risk of being the first victim, a land of conquest.
At the community level, the ideas to affirm the European space in this situation follow the thread of von der Leyen’s reasoning about strengthening the Union. But the path is not downhill. In his conversation with the President, Sassoli asked for clarity on the “timing and ambitions” of the recovery fund, the new tool being studied by the European Commission to respond to the economic crisis, linked to the European multi-annual budget and financed by bonds issued by the Commission itself.
The proposal for the Palazzo Berlaymont could arrive no earlier than May 20 (initially expected for this week). According to European sources, the fund should start with a leverage of 430 billion euros, which, with private investments and bonds, could mobilize up to 1.5 billion. The President’s idea is to allow a substantial part of these resources to end up in the Member States in the form of non-repayable loans. This, von der Leyen explains to his interlocutors, should serve to balance the disparities in state aid: the most indebted countries in the south may spend less than Germany to strengthen their crisis-affected industries.
And then the idea is to strengthen strategic assets by incorporating national ‘jewels’ at European poles to be stronger globally. But in this we are only in the headlines, for the moment. Certainly, in Brussels there is now an awareness of having to fight at least two wars: one against the pandemic and the other to assert a certain European independence from the two main world contenders, the United States and China.
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