Premier Matteo Renzi on
Wednesday accused the European Union of doing next to nothing to
tackle the big challenges it faces.
"As (German philosopher) Jurgen Habermas said, the
responses of the EU seem characterised by frenetic immobility,"
Renzi told the Lower House.
"After the Berlin, Brussels and Ventotene summits, where
we had imagined a significant programme of reforms for the
Bratislava summit, we realised that the frenetic immobilism lead
to little more than nothing.
"A banal (concluding) document, the sum of many summaries,
a list of good promises".
Renzi said that the March European summit in Rome will be
a crux moment for the EU's future.
"The 27 States will meet in the Eternal City and they will
try to imagine the future," Renzi told the Lower House.
"It's a dividing moment. It's extremely important,
crucial, decisive".
Renzi said that Italy will take a hard line with States
that fail to do their bit to address the asylum-seeker crisis
when it comes to discussing the next EU budget.
"The EU is about to discuss the next budget. In the next
few months it will debate the division of the EU budget again,"
Renzi said.
"It's fundamentally important that Italy promotes a very
tough position with those countries that have received lots of
money but are getting away from their commitments of migrant
relocations".
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