“Many thought the EU was finished after Brexit but that is not the case”, said Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi on Monday, as he welcomed the French president, François Hollande, and German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for a second mini-summit of the EU’s three largest countries by population, organised with the intention of plotting a new course for the union following the United Kingdom referendum.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on an Italian aircraft carrier hosting an Italo-German-French summit off the island of Ventotene Monday that that “the Coast Guard alone can not control maritime borders, we have to do still more”.
Mr Renzi said 102,000 migrants had reached Italian shores so far in 2016, compared to 105,000 at this point a year ago, and said help must still be available “to those who really need it”.
Heavily-indebted Italy, whose economy has barely grown since the introduction of the euro currency in 1999, has repeatedly chafed against stern European Union budget rules, and both Renzi and Hollande want greater flexibility to help boost growth.
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Holland start their meeting by paying respects at the tomb of Altiero Spinelli, who in 1941 began co-writing the “Ventotene Manifesto”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that the European Union is now facing “enormous challenges” and needs to work together.
“To have security we need frontiers that are controlled so that is why we are working to reinforce coastguards and border guards”, he said.
Merkel says: “more needs to be done for our internal and external security”.
Among other things, she said defense cooperation should be strengthened and that intelligence services need to intensify their exchange of information.
The three placed bouquets of blue and yellow flowers – the colors of the European Union – on Spinelli’s tombstone before meeting for an hour privately aboard the nearby Garibaldi. “We want that the Europe after Brexit – the Europe hit in its heart by terrorism – will relaunch the powerful ideals of unity and peace, freedom and dreams, dialogue and identity”.
Chancellor Merkel is fighting an election campaign next year and she knows there is little will in Germany for further economic integration within the EU, as was proposed by several European finance ministers after the UK’s Brexit vote in June.
Monday’s mini-summit served as a warm-up for an EU-wide summit in Bratislava in September created to chart the EU’s post-Brexit future. It follows an initial three-way huddle by Renzi, Merkel and Holland in Berlin in the days immediately following the June 23 British referendum.
France is among the European countries seeing a rise in support for nationalist parties amid economic and security concerns.
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Charting a course is hard until Britain formally begins the exit process, probably next year, and lays out proposals for its future relationship with the EU. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission. This includes the preparation of derivative works of, or the incorporation of such content into other works.
