Italian Premier Matteo
Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President
Francois Hollande on Monday said they wanted to write the EU's
future at a summit on an aircraft carrier off the Italian island
of Ventotene aimed at helping relaunch the EU at a time of
pressure from terror, migrants, flagging economies and Brexit.
Speaking amid huge security measures, Renzi said "the EU is
not finished with Brexit, let's write the future" and "we want
strong measures for growth".
Merkel praised Renzi's structural reforms and said Germany
wanted "more cooperation on migrants", stressing it had changed
its mind on the "Europeanisation" of the problem and that
Turkey's role against migrant smugglers was essential.
Hollande said the EU must "protect itself but also welcome
those who are fleeing" war and desperation.
All three leaders said their summit was aimed at laying the
groundwork for a key mid-September EU summit in Bratislava,
Slovakia.
Ventotene was chosen for the summit for its significance as
the location where one of the precursor documents for the EU
charter was drafted by anti-Fascist Altiero Spinelli, at whose
grave on the island the three leaders laid bouquets in the EU
colours, blue and yellow.
The main topics on the agenda were security and defence,
growth and investments, and young people, but also Turkey,
migrants and terrorism, Libya, Syria and Italy's reiterated
request to move from austerity to more budget flexibility.
In other remarks, Merkel said "I think the stability pact
has many possibilities of flexibility" but it will be up to the
European Commission to deal with (EU) member States.
"We want Italy, France and Germany to grow to create jobs
and the conditions for the future of private investments," she
said.
Renzi said that "Italy has the lowest deficit of the last
10 years and will continue with structural reforms and the
reduction of the deficit for our children and grandchildren".
He said "we believe Europe is not the problem but the
solution.
"Europe for us represents the solution, for the populists
on the other hand everything is Europe's fault.
"Europe is the greatest opportunity.
"Let's not be discouraged by Brexit," he said.
Renzi said that the EU must do more to stop migrant
departures and "help those who really need it".
He said 102,000 migrants had reached Italian shores this
year, compared to 105,000 as of August 20 last year.
Renzi said ahead of the summit that it was easy to blame
the EU for things that go wrong but harder to try to build a
different Europe, more attentive to values and less to financial
factors.
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