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Once again Winston Churchill. Recently, the President of the Republic predicted future electoral difficulties for the Prime Minister after the pandemic crisis, as even the former British Prime Minister “was presided over” after winning the war. But there it is, Marcelo has also called António Costa an “irritating optimist” who, in turn, prefers to look at Churchill from another perspective, the one in which the British pointed out, in 1942, after the first battle won, in El Alamein . “End of beginning” of the Second World War. This is how António Costa expects, for Covid-19, when he assumes the presidency of the Council of the European Union, in the first half of next year.
Together with José Manuel Barroso, former president of the European Commission and current president of the Global Alliance for Vaccines, the prime minister wanted to “correct the verb tenses” of the pandemic, hitchhiking the most quoted man in history, Winston Churchill, using the famous “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But this is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” António Costa also states that “The vaccine will not be the end of this pandemic yet, it may not even be the beginning of its end, but it may be the end of the beginning of the pandemic crisis.”
Costa works “in a context of trust in which in the first half of 2021 the world will have a new vaccine”, although he acknowledges that it is “a challenge of the greatest importance and very demanding, from the logistical and of distribution. It will be difficult, it is uncertain, but we can correct the times ”, he assumed in a conference on the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union, promoted by the Portuguese Catholic University this Monday.
As of January 1, 202, Portugal will be “in the House of machinesFrom the European Union, as the former president of the Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, refers to the Presidency that the country will assume that day. As for what he will bring to the table, the rapporteur is the incumbent prime minister who begins by putting Angela Merkel’s resolution in the hands of the Gordian knots of the European moment and hopes that they will not reach their moment without a solution.
“We have good reason to trust the work of the German presidency and the ability of the Chancellor Merkel in order to bring the final negotiations to a successful conclusion ”. The Portuguese hope is that both the impasse regarding the conditionality of the rule of law to access the Resilience and Recovery mechanism, as well as the end of the post-Brexit negotiation, will be closed when Portugal gets into the eye of the European hurricane. And that the country can stay at the head of the EU when the first response to last year’s crisis arrives.
If not? Portugal begins the Presidency “with a dramatic moment border blockade “between the EU and the UK” and with a “Deadpoint” not only in the mechanism created to support member states in the economic crisis caused by the confines of Covid-19, but also in the new multi-year financial framework. But right now, neither Costa, nor Merkel, nor any member state can say they have any of the solutions at hand. Post-Brexit has not yet been closed and Hungary, Poland and Slovenia continue to block the European Council’s agreement on the requirement of compliance with the rule of law enshrined in the treaties to access the Recovery and Resilience package.
And here is a disturbing element for the Portuguese prime minister: the elections in the Netherlands, the leader of frugais And that raised further problems with the approval of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism. “If the impasse is not overcome [agora, com Hungria, Polónia e Eslovénia], the calendar of dutch elections it will be a strong condition for its approval. It will be a race against time for its approval ”, confided the prime minister after being questioned by Barroso on the matter.
The most peaceful part of these six months seems to have come from beyond the Atlantic, with the election of Joe Biden in the United States and the end, António Costa believes, turning his back on environmental issues: “We once again have a ally determining factor in the fight against climate change ”. But in this “very special moment” in which Costa hopes it will be “auspicious for the new transatlantic relationship”, there are also expectations of being able to be in the European “engine room” at the time of “a new relationship in two more areas. difficult that have to do with security and defense [NATO] and in the commercial area ”, with commercial agreements without the threat of Donald Trump.
With the inauguration of the new US president scheduled for January 20, the Portuguese government now hopes to be able to be taken over precisely when this relationship grows closer.
In addition, Costa also plans to sign a joint position in Porto on May 8 for the development of the EU social pillar. On the 7th and 8th, the city will host “the central act of the presidency, which is the social summit and the informal Council on the social pillar.” And he still wants to mark the beginning of the discussion on the future of Europe, in “going against a new bipolar model and promoting a multipolar world.”
The Prime Minister considers this “Great debate” on what Europe should be “led to the exit of the United Kingdom” that saw in the EU an “economic platform to generate value” and not the part of “sharing”. In fact, Costa even says that this concern has already contaminated “even some founders of the European project” and that today “there are several member states defending the positions of the United Kingdom”.
“A Anguish and fear are grass for populism to flourish. If we want to combat the populist drift, we have to tackle the root of the problem: reinforcing responses to the people, ”the Prime Minister also said in his presentation on the problems that lie ahead, that is, what the transition to the digital world can dignify in terms of work. .
In addition to all the discussions, debates and unstable deadlocks, Portugal will continue to face logistical problems that, most likely, will continue in the first six months of the year. Most meetings can be conducted by videoconference. “We can basically have intermittent video conference meetings,” the prime minister warned of the times ahead.
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