Brexit | Italy brings German, French heads to EU symbolic birthplace

In this Monday, June 27, 2016 file photo, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (center), the Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi (right), and the President of France Francois Hollande brief the media during a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin

The leaders of Italy, France and Germany headed yesterday to one of the birthplaces of European unity in a symbolic bid to relaunch the European project following Britain’s decision to leave the EU.
Spurring economic growth, bolstering security and creating new options for European youth are among the topics expected to be discussed by Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Holland.
Renzi greeted Hollande and Merkel at Naples’ military airport, and the three were then heading by helicopter to the island of Ventotene to pay their respects at the tomb of Altiero Spinelli, considered one of the founding fathers of European unity.
Spinelli, along with another anti-fascist confined to Ventotene in the 1940s, co-wrote the “Ventotene Manifesto” calling for a federation of European states to counter the nationalism that had led Europe to war.
The document is considered the inspiration for European federalism.
“Two symbols in one: idealistic values and concrete commitment,” Renzi wrote yesterday of Ventotene and the Garibaldi in his weekly newsletter. “We want that the Europe after Brexit — the Europe hit in its heart by terrorism — will relaunch the powerful ideals of unity and peace, freedom and dreams, dialogue and identity.”
Italy has a lot to gain from a reinvigorated EU as it copes with flat GDP, the migrant crisis and political uncertainties over a constitutional referendum this fall on which Renzi has staked his government’s survival.
Renzi has called Ventotene the “cradle of Europe” and is keen to highlight its historic role in the founding of the EU as Italy seeks even greater integration, particularly on the security front to help it cope with migrants, and flexibility from Brussels as it tries to rein in its record public debt.
Yesterday’s mini-summit will now serve as a warmup for an EU-wide summit in Bratislava in September designed to chart the EU’s post-Brexit way forward. It follows an initial three-way huddle by Renzi, Merkel and Holland in Berlin in the days immediately following the June 23 British referendum.
There, the three leaders pledged their commitment to European unity and plotted a common proposal to relaunch the European project focusing on three key areas: improving security, boosting economic growth and strengthening options and programs for young people.
This summit will also give Renzi a chance to hash out options as Italy copes with slow growth and other financial worries, especially at its banks which are struggling under some 360 billion euros (USD408 billion) in bad loans.
According to recent Eurostat figures, growth was flat in Italy in the second quarter, compared with 0.4 percent growth in the EU. Unemployment was 11.6 percent in June, well above the EU average of 8.6 percent. Youth unemployment was even worse: 36.5 percent in Italy, exceeded in the EU only by Spain, and nearly twice as high as the EU average of 18.5 percent.
Renzi, however, has a bigger concern on the horizon, a gamble that he brought on himself and is worrying Europe as it could affect Italy’s political stability and strengthen the euroskeptic, populist 5-Star Movement.
He has called a referendum for this fall proposing a host of changes to the constitution, including reducing the power of the Senate and giving the central government control of some policy areas now in the hands of regions. Renzi has suggested he would resign if it fails, an outcome that Italy’s business lobby Confindustria has warned would create “political chaos” and lead Italy back into recession.
In an interview this weekend with La Repubblica, Renata Colorni, whose father helped spread the “Ventotene Manifesto” through Italy’s resistance movement and whose mother married Spinelli, said she had little hope that today’s Europe could ever meet the Ventotene founders’ original ideals.
“Honestly, today I don’t see first-rate politicians, I only see statesmen who move through the European scene worried about losing the next national elections,” she was quoted as saying. “What’s missing is the will to risk it all for an ideal.”
Charting a course is difficult until Britain formally begins the exit process, probably next year, and lays out proposals for its future relationship with the EU. Paolo Santalucia, Nicole Winfield, Ventotene, AP/MDT