Mario Draghi: the one who single-handedly proposes himself as the envoy of destiny to lead the EU

Mario Draghi can’t stay in retirement. On the one hand, the desire to wield power is greater than his; on the other hand, in a Europe with increasingly discredited and lacking leaders with an acceptable image,.

His speech made to present the guidelines in his report on competitiveness is, in fact, a programmatic speech in which he puts himself forward as the European leader of the next Commission.
Draghi is expected to be awaited as the Messiah, as has been the case in Italy, but at the European level, the press has been much cooler than the Italian press, which, in regard to him, has been on display for its incredible servility and sycophancy. Unfortunately, Italy has a press that would not disfigure Kim Jong-un’s North Korea.

A little place to get noticed

To make his speech, as Musso on NicolaPorro’s Blog. he chose 15 minutes in a conference that had nothing to do with his competence:  the La Hulpe Declaration on the future of the European pillar of social rights, which has little to do with his skills and abilities Social rights he did not really defend when, as a member of Greece, he imposed vicious social cuts. His speech was a bit like one by Torquemada at a conference on interreligious dialogue.

A small quarter of an hour, surrounded by a series of lesser figures (the Polish family minister, the Belgian deputy prime minister), or not necessarily sympathetic ones (the Hamas-friendly Yolanda Díaz Pérez, the Socialist candidate for the presidency of the Commission, Nicolas Schmit). This is while, in the Anglo-Saxon context, he is always given a place of honor, if not even an award.

Out of context but had to show up

The speech itself mentions the social partners at the event almost casually: near the end, in the paragraph “ensuring the provision of essential resources and inputs,” There, he proclaims urgently procuring critical minerals and skilled workers. Tones that not even Marie Antoinette.

On the substance, “adapting our labor market to the digital age and empowering [in the sense of technical education] our workers.” The same old stuff that, by now, will bore even him.

Manifestly, he stood at the Luisi conference like the cabbage in a snack. however, he had to speak and present his candidacy now, at a time when the EPP, the main political force, has set its sights on the current president, who does not look like a

The usual single market

First is the completion of the internal market. And here is a series of pieces of advice: “streamline and harmonize telecommunications regulations among member states”; “standardize the data” of sick people and transfer them to “artificial intelligence”; “revise the current prudential regulation on bank lending” to make it less stringent, i.e., take back what he did as ECB president.

Nothing new; on the contrary, the same policies of the last 30 years are being continued, which have led only to the impoverishment of some states and the loss of industrial capacity amid general decadence. The single market does not work, or does not work on its own; everyone of good will has seen that by now.

No European army

All pretty obvious stuff, including a clarification on military matters: “intensify joint procurement, increase coordination of our spending, and improve the interoperability of our equipment.” So joint procurement in the EU on military equipment, again in the name of the phantom single market but not the single army, also because there is NATO and Draghi is a hardcore Atlanticist.
Single procurement will serve no purpose; for example, the joint Airbus Tiger attack helicopter project cost an immensity and is much worse than the projects developed by individual states.

The usual collection

After that, he raises the issue of funding. In previous speeches, he already explained that national ones are not enough, and here he repeats that “there are investments from which we all benefit but which no country can carry out alone.”

So, private individuals have to pay for it: the usual stuff of the CMU-Capital Markets Union … that there is, each says so; where it is, no one knows. So much so that ours, on this matter, goes so far as to propose enhanced cooperation. Individual countries do not want Capital market union, which would make all capital flow into one center, depriving all others.

Above all, the EU must pay for it: “better use of the EU’s joint lending capacity.” He will specify, then, that “we do not have the luxury of delaying answers to all these important questions until the next treaty change.” So, with the treaties in place, what he is proposing is a repeat of SURE or, at best, NextGenEU. NextGenEU has served no purpose, so we continue with super-constrained and useless projects

No austerity

It was so obvious and predictable that, from Draghi, one would expect him to have thought of some compensation for the Germans. And he does, in fact, mention “a new strategic instrument for economic policy coordination.” What was done—in his time and at his proposal—with the damned Fiscal Compact, so dear to Berlin.

But this time, the proposal is much less attractive. Thus Draghi: “in Europe since the sovereign debt crisis, we have pursued a deliberate strategy of reducing wage costs relative to one another and, combining this with a pro-cyclical fiscal policy, the net effect has only been to weaken our domestic demand.”

Translated, no Greek cure or “Monti” cure this time, which explains the desperate French support, which was expressed in the support of Italian newspapers serving France.

Germany will say no

Even if Draghi presents himself as the “Last Resort,” Germany is unlikely to accept him. First of all, it cannot accept an Italian in positions of power because, in any case, even on the left, ethnic issues have their own weight. Moreover, German liberals will never accept a policy that does not start with debt and debtor culpability.

In addition, Draghi spoke about the end of the principle of unanimity in the decisions of the EU Council, composed of the representatives of the states, and this imposition could be, at last, the element that breaks this bureaucratic EU: the first time states will impose their decision on a single state by the democratically elected government, on the basis of the majority principle, on an important issue, this country will, at last, pull the brake and leave the Union.