Europe will change after the elections | The different …

PageI12 in Italy

From Rome

The European Union must change. It is one of the main flags, both of the right and center-right and progressives, in the election campaign of the next European elections on May 26th. But clearly on what needs to be changed and how to do it, they do not agree. The events of the last five years, that is to say since the last European elections in 2014, have certainly influenced this need for change. We are talking about terrorism in the first place – because of the attacks in Belgium, France, Germany, England, Sweden, Spain and Finland – but also migration (nearly two million migrants arrived in Europe between 2014 and 2019, according to the United Nations) and Brexit, that is to say the disputed exit of Great Britain from the European Union that has not yet been finalized but has caused quite the same instability.

For Italy's Right Interior Minister and Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the issue of migration is fundamental, as are colleagues in Austria, Hungary and Poland, who consider it as one of the main evils of this era. But Salvini's party, La Liga, is also struggling to change the rules that have hurt countries like Italy, referring to banks, the economy and work.

The Five-Star Movement (M5S), which is also part of the government, shares Salvini's views on migration issues, calling for a redistribution of migrants in Europe, but also says NO to the austerity imposed by Europe to certain countries, tax havens and privileges and calls for a European minimum wage, as do some center-left parties.

The ultra-right Fratelli d'Italia, through the mouth of his Italian-Argentine candidate and great grandson of dictator Benito Mussolini, Cayo Julio Cesar Mussolini, claims not to be "against migration" but "against the "invasion" of migrants. Pope Francis, still grappling with the problem of migrants, invites him not to interfere in the "internal problems of a sovereign country", like Italy, and to open the doors of the Vatican "which are very well closed and protected by high walls ". to receive migrants.

Mussolini, whose mother is Argentina, was born in Argentina in 1968, where her family had taken refuge after the Second World War and had an Argentine pbadport. A long-time Italian naval officer, Mussolini then worked in several countries as a representative of the Italian Oto Melara armament factory. If he is elected, he hopes to be able to enter at least the European Parliament's subcommittee on defense, which, in some countries, might be hindered by the existence of a "conflict". 39 "interests" because of its relationship with an arms manufacturer. According to him, the first thing to do in the European Parliament is to reduce spending and bureaucracy, by eliminating one of its two large offices in Europe (Strasbourg and Brussels).

For the center-right sectors, such as Forza Italia, the party founded by Silvio Berlusconi, who today, at 82, is again a candidate, "Europe must be changed but not destroyed", explained the current President of the European Parliament. Antonio Tajani, representative of Forza Italia, because "only a united Europe can contain the advances of the United States, China and Russia".

According to the progressive parties like the Democratic Party, it is about making changes in Europe that allow to create a kind of "European economic government" correcting the imbalances existing between the different countries and encouraging the work by creating, among others, a European distribution of expenditure. Unemployment and a common minimum wage and the implementation of a major investment plan. On the issue of immigration, it is necessary, according to the DP, to reform the Dublin Convention, an agreement on migration issues signed in 1990 but which came into force only after 1997. This agreement is one of the most critical points of the debate in Europe. , especially by the anti-immigrant countries and despite the fact that, according to experts, a group of low-birth-rate states like Europe will need millions of immigrants in the years to come to increase their production and pay their pensions.

In mid-2018, Italy began rejecting ships that were hosting migrants in the Mediterranean and closing their ports on the orders of Minister Salvini, who wanted to force other European countries to receive them. Instead of seeking a regional landing agreement guaranteeing a fair system and shared responsibilities between EU countries, European leaders have focused on creating landing platforms outside the EU. EU and to bring the saved people there and prosecute them. in these places your requests for asylum. Italy and the EU have concluded agreements with Libya so that the coast guard of this country stops the ships carrying migrants and brings them back. But with the current war in Libya – the country from which most of the African migrants heading for Europe left – and after the denunciation by human rights organizations against many military and civilians involved in human trafficking, the situation began to waver

Among the elections – which do not take place in all European countries the same day but vary between May 23 and 26 – about 400 million people over 18 will be able to vote. But until now, not everyone has clear ideas. Italy has the right to elect 73 parliamentarians out of a total of 751.

According to some forecasts from Quorum-You Trend and published by Sky TV, Salvini lost a point of advantage, from 33.2% of voters who thought to vote in April to 32.1% in April. can. The M5S would have remained in April and May 22.3 and 22.2%. The center-left of the PD and its ally "We are Europeans" would have gone from 21.1% in April to 21.4% in May and Fratelli's in Italy from 5.2% to 5.3% while Berlusconi would have lost some points, going from 9.9% to 9.5%. But these are just forecasts that, depending on how the surveys were conducted, can be really meaningful or not.

The other question concerns the alliances that each party will establish in the European Parliament, which could give more or less force to their proposals for change. Salvini, for his part, hopes to be able to ally with right-wing parties such as Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary and Austria, as well as Vox from Spain, Navy Le Pen of France and Nigel Farage of the United Kingdom, among others, which according to some forecasts get good results But the panorama in this direction will be clear after the elections.