Importantly, the German chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government published a white paper advocating new pan-European military command structures after Brexit, has agreed that Europe must do “more for our internal and external security”.
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Speaking on an aircraft carrier off the Italian island of Ventotene, Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Francois Hollande and Italy’s Matteo Renzi issued calls for closer security cooperation and better opportunities for young people.
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi says Europe wants to “write a future chapter” after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union focusing on common defense, security and economic growth especially addressing youth unemployment. “We need results”, she said.
The leaders of the euro area’s three largest economies vowed to push ahead with the European project despite the populist backlash against Brussels. Merkel will talk to another 13 leaders between Wednesday and Saturday as she canvasses opinion before in-depth talks at the meeting in Bratislava on September 16. The location for Monday’s summit carries particular resonance as Europe confronts Islamic extremist violence, economic stagnation and continued anxiety over the implications of the Brexit vote.
The Italian prime minister said European leaders wanted to write a new chapter for the EU. French officials have said they expect to find a formula that can keep the other two happy without bending fiscal rules.
“I think the Stability Pact has quite a lot of flexibility that we can use in a clever way”.
They said they would discuss improving European Union cooperation on intelligence and defence matters, giving aid to African nations to stop migration flows to Europe, and promoting growth and jobs, particularly for the younger generations. Faced with a series of terror attacks in France since previous year, they said Europe also needs to focus on security, including intelligence cooperation and data sharing.
Quoting from it, Renzi said: “The moment has arrived in which we must know how to discard old burdens, how to be ready for the new world that is coming, that will be so different from what we have imagined”.
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi has invited his German and French counterparts to pay their respects at the tomb of one of the founding fathers of European unity in a symbolic bid to relaunch the bloc after Britain’s clamorous decision to leave the EU. In a contrast to the surge of anti-EU sentiment, that document foresaw the dismantling of Europe’s nation-states in favour of a federal state and is viewed as a founding document of united Europe after the wartime devastation and carnage.
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Britain has always blocked plans for a so-called “EU Army”, arguing that it would undermine North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as the cornerstone of European defence and (we don’t say out loud) our influence in Washington and at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation conference table. “That applies to immigration as well”.
