EU must make choices - Gentiloni (2)

(ANSA) - Rome, March 6 - Premier Paolo Gentiloni said Monday "not only our countries (Italy, France, Germany and Spain), but all 27 EU countries, must make choices, within the framework of the European Commission's White Paper, without which we risk jeopardising the very future of the European project".
    Ahead of a four-way summit in Paris, he said we need "a more integrated EU, but which can permit different levels of integration. "It is right and normal that countries have different ambitions and these ambitions can get different answers, maintaining the common project". On March 25 in Rome, at a special summit on the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, he said, "the Union will start again from the European people".
    We need a social Europe and common defence policy, Gentiloni said ahead of the Paris summit with French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy. "We need a social Europe, which looks to growth and investments. A Europe in which those who lag behind doesn't consider the EU a source of difficulties but an answer to their difficulties," he said, adding that "steps forward are needed in common defence...to protect our safety", steps Italy, France, Germany and Spain agree on.