The conclusions the EU-27 summit issued on 16 October were a letdown. The Council fell back on its beloved Delphic double-talk, which yields no meaning. Or substance.
Most governments wanted extra fiscal room for new tax cuts or subsidies to bring cheaper energy to the masses. And the Council… invited the Commission, should it agree, to look at new measures in due course.
To some extent, the Council’s failure to tackle the slide in living standards fuelled the anger of last weekend’s protesters in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. In many EU countries, those standards are sinking ever deeper into a sorry state, above all for young people and pensioners. The cause is not only a new wave of energy crisis and inflation. It is also a shortage of affordable homes and reasonable rents, and cuts or freezes in state spending on social policy.
Today Italy’s biggest union, or one of the biggest, the Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, which is close to the communist and socialist left, is due to hold a new rally in a central square in Milan. It is the same square where, only days ago, hundreds of hooded rioters ran amok once a huge but peaceful march had ended and the bulk of the crowd had left.
The Meloni government rushed yesterday to step up the army’s presence in Milan. Macron is pushing something similar in France, where curfews are already in force in some urban areas. But today’s march against social inequality carries a second headline message: a condemnation of violence. So if the usual hooded suspects are frozen out this time, more trouble in Milan is not thought very likely.
Except that today is Wednesday, and the weekend is coming. The protests will be back. In Italy and in France. Perhaps elsewhere too. And they will be less marshalled by big unions or democratic parties. They will be more spontaneous, more unpredictable and liable to take a dangerous turn.
For a Commission president under fire from every direction, and for Antonio Costa, feeling the squeeze after the last summit’s glaring failure, the weekend and the new street tensions it is certain to bring to Europe’s capitals and big cities are a worry that can wait a couple of days.
For now, the real ordeal for the EU’s two top officials is how to survive today’s plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Top of the agenda is a review of the summit’s conclusions and, by extension, the energy crisis and the impoverishment of millions of households. All this with winter about to bare its teeth any day now.
Ursula and the likeable Antonio are certain to take a hammering today, perhaps harder than ever. The Commission president may even face another motion of censure.
With societies seething, above all on the western edge of Europe’s south, the reckoning is that harsh criticism of the European Commission and the European Council will come from almost every political group. Most of it will be aimed at the Council’s president, Costa. Even the European People’s Party and the Socialists and Democrats, Parliament’s two big partners, are expected to join in.
That they will all vent their spleen from the benches today is a given. But will they manage to channel the criticism and contempt into enough pressure to force those who really make the decisions and give the orders to change priorities and change course? That looks a very long shot.
So, inevitably, the weekend will hand the floor back to the people who are really getting burnt. Yesterday natural gas, the EU’s main heating fuel, hit a new five-year price high, and Brent crude a five-month high. Without violence and without casualties, we hope.
