Meloni-Merz axis, pre-summit on competitiveness in Belgium. Evidence of a multi-speed EU

"Some say that 2026 will be the year of Italia and Germany. I don't know, but we will try our best'. In mid-January, welcoming Friedrich Merz in Rome, Giorgia Meloni had already put the seal on a dynamic that is now explicit. They are the first two leaders to respond to the call for the "pragmatism" of Mario Draghi, convening for Thursday 12 an EU pre-summit on competitiveness, forerunner of the informal retreat that will bring together the leaders of the Twenty-Seven at the Belgian castle of Alden Biesen, together with Draghi himself and Enrico Letta.

The invitation, with the double signature of Rome and Berlin at the bottom, was also delivered to the Elysée Palace. But no signals have so far come from Paris. A silence that betrays the tensions that mark the traditional Franco-German axis on the responses to Donald Trump's pressure and on the continent's economic and defence line. The pre-summit, launched together with Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, is the dress rehearsal of a Europe pushed by those 'far-sighted countries' also evoked by the former ECB president, ready to put up a united front. More than a dozen leaders are expected around the Italo-German table, from the Nordics to the Baltics, with the European Commission called to preside. A method already tested on immigration - and, more recently, on the economy with the Big Six format - now transferred to the terrain of deregulation, the relaunch of the single market and the centrality of global trade.

Faced with an increasingly unstable transatlantic relationship, Meloni and Merz are pushing to strengthen Europe from within, averting a rupture with Donald Trump and accrediting themselves as leaders of the two 'leading European industrial nations'. A formula that blurs the alliance between France and Germany, marking a growing distance from the more muscular and protectionist autonomy advocated by Emmanuel Macron. And the divergence also surfaces on the defence industrial front, with Berlin ready to pull out of the Franco-German-Spanish Fcas fighter project to join the Gcap rival led by Italia, the United Kingdom and Japan. The Italo-German wager - formalised in recent weeks in the protocol on the bilateral action plan and in a joint letter to Brussels - is, however, played out above all on the economic terrain: breaking down internal barriers to the common market, harmonising standards and relaunching the industrial base. With a non-secondary distinction, however: despite the convergence on the need for an EU competitiveness fund, the common debt supported by Italia remains an insurmountable line for Germany.

At Alden Biesen, a hundred or so kilometres from Brussels, the fault line with Paris is also set to widen on the Buy European, Macron's workhorse to armour contracts and strategic investments - arms in the lead - with a marked European preference. Rome and Berlin fear the boomerang effect: less capital, more rigid value chains and a competitiveness that risks weakening. "The answer to the global challenges cannot be isolation," German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche scolded, finding agreement even with the Nordic and Baltic countries - Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden - which in a non-paper branded the proposal as harmful.

After the preparatory meeting, Draghi and Letta will hold the thread of the Twenty-Seven summit, ready to put the leaders in front of reality: more than a year and a half later, most of the recommendations of their reports on competitiveness and the single market have remained a dead letter. The former number one of the Eurotower in recent days has not minced his words: the global order is "defunct" and a Europe paralysed by vetoes risks "subordination". The alternative is not to wait for unity, but to move with those who are ready now. It is time to 'break the mould', the former Dem prime minister echoed him, also urging a European Bund. The test for Meloni and Merz will be how many countries are ready to move forward.