Four-month suspension for the Mes. More time to negotiate with the EU but now there is a formal commitment

ROME. Four months from now, by the end of October at the latest. As anticipated in recent days, the center-right majority has postponed the decision on the ratification of the State-saving Fund, however making a black and white commitment on the deadline within which to proceed with the ratification. The resolution presented this morning by the majority to the Chamber is number 712. “In the light of the changes made to the founding treaty of the Mes, following the recent changes in the international context in which the Mes would be called to operate and considering that it is still in the process of awaiting what may be the new rules of the European Stability Pact, the completion of the banking union and the financial safeguard mechanisms – fundamental issues for the future growth of all the member countries of the European Union and inseparable from the Mes – it is considered appropriate to carry out further investigations into the functioning of the Mes, given the delicacy of the topics covered for a period of four months”.

The comment of the suspension – first signed by the group leader of the Brothers of Italy Tommaso Foti – does nothing but formalize the political intent of Giorgia Meloni: to link the ratification of the reform to the other dossiers on the Twenty-Seven table. In the eyes of the partners, the Italian posture sounds like blackmail, but having formalized a short term all in all sounds like a relaxing gesture. In reality, the approach is not new: since his arrival at the meetings of the finance ministers of the euro area, Giancarlo Giorgetti has posed the question in these terms. But in Brussels they know that the Italian hesitations have above all a political origin: within the League that the Brothers of Italy are not counted stomachaches against the ratification, considered a yielding to the pro-European ideology. The problem is that ratification – on which Italy comes last – depends on the activation of a decisive financial instrument to safeguard the single currency area from the consequences of a possible financial crisis.

The most politically interesting part of the suspension voted in the Chamber by the majority is precisely where it underlines the most contestable points of the reform, on all the conditionalities linked to a possible request for financial assistance: “Among the changes made to the treaty establishing the ESM, it is worth highlighting the critical issues relating to the precautionary conditional credit line (PCCL), granted with the sole signing of a letter of intent (and not a memorandum of understanding), and limited to countries able to meet more detailed criteria than those envisaged by the current regime”.

When the government undertakes to “investigate the functioning of the Mes” in the next four months, it actually chooses a rhetorical device. There will or will not be ratification: it is impossible to imagine that the complicated decision-making mechanism of the Union can accept the requests of a single partner, however one of the most important, moreover on a reform already ratified by nineteen out of twenty. But in politics what matters are the underlying messages. And that of today’s suspension can be summarized as follows: we are committed to ratification in Parliament, provided that in the meantime the reasons and requests of the Italian government are heard. Between now and the autumn there are also a couple of important seats to discuss, including the one vacated by Fabio Panetta in the executive committee of the European Central Bank. In short, Meloni is caught between the pro-European realpolitik of governing and Salvini’s anti-Europeanism, and the outcome is not obvious. In less than a year we will vote for the renewal of the Strasbourg Parliament.

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