Meloni: Cohesion Funds and the CAP defended in Brussels; battle over the ETS

BRUSSELS – There is one issue on which Italia can really make a difference: the EU’s multiannual budget for 2028–2034. “We have defended funding for the Common Agricultural Policy and Cohesion Policy,” claims Giorgia Meloni, “but there is still a long way to go in the debate.” There is a real, tangible achievement on the sidelines: the agreement with the Commission on the Energy Bills Decree has finally been secured. The gains on energy and the ETS are not substantial, but government sources consider them the best the Prime Minister could have secured. And there is ‘optimism’ regarding the request for additional flexibility linked to inflation: ‘I have spoken to Ursula von der Leyen; it seems there is some leeway, within the current rules, including with regard to energy investments’.

The Prime Minister is leaving Brussels at the end of a long and gruelling European Council meeting. The first day, Thursday, concluded late at night with a compromise reached on the European CO₂ emissions trading scheme. The second day was marred by news from Italia, on which she was kept updated, between one working session and the next, by her staff and ministers: air traffic brought to a standstill by faults in the data transmission network, clashes in the streets between students and the police, and lorry drivers on the warpath.

On the ETS, it secures a commitment to ‘accelerate legislative negotiations to mitigate the impact of price volatility on electricity prices’ and, above all, the unexpected reference to ETS 2 (the extension of the scheme to households and road transport) alongside an ‘impact assessment’, in relation to its design and safeguard measures. It is not the six-point reform that Meloni proposed with the Czech Andrej Babiš, nor is it a postponement of the ETS 2’s entry into force. However, it is a breakthrough achieved after gruelling negotiations that lasted until late into the night.

At the negotiating table, Italia was burdened by an energy mix that remained heavily reliant on gas and oil, which – particularly from the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden, had led to veiled accusations that it had not done enough for renewables and energy independence. How did it break through the Nordic bloc and the reticence of Germany, France and Spain with only the support of the Visegrad Group? By demonstrating ad nauseam, even with ‘graphical aids’ (see yesterday’s Il Sole 24 Ore), ‘how certain decisions, from a certain year onwards, have driven up energy costs for businesses and how this has led to a degree of deindustrialisation in Europe, affecting industries that used to produce goods which we now import from countries that do not share our environmental standards’. Distortions that ‘must be corrected’.

The Prime Minister witnesses the grand return of the Franco-German alliance with the agreement on the automotive sector and Made in Europe, but shows no sign of disappointment. “It meets Italia’s demands,” she states for the record. And Germany’s Merz acknowledges this: “Our Italian friends agree.” On Ukraine, when asked about Russian frozen assets – which have returned to the spotlight in response to requests for aid from Zelensky, Meloni reiterated the legal difficulties surrounding this measure and shifted the focus: “At this Council meeting, it was essential to use clear language on sanctions against Russia. We must not take any steps backwards.”