EU Summit, Conte: focus on foreign markets and digital investments

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• Eastern Mediterranean, Stoltenberg: "Agreement between Greece and Turkey"

• EU Summit, Conte: focus on foreign markets and digital investments

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01 October 2020 "The European Council is about to begin. Today and tomorrow we will work with other European leaders for an agenda that has at its center" international tensions, in particular "those in the Eastern Mediterranean, then we will discuss relations between the European Union and Turkey, and then the Belarusian crisis, and then again Nagorno-Karabakh, an ancient crisis that has recently reactivated between Azerbaijanis and Armenians. "And then again we will discuss the more general relationship between the European Union and China".

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte summarized the issues under discussion at the summit of heads of state and government which is taking place today and tomorrow in Brussels in a statement to the cameras upon his arrival at the European Council building. to the topic on the agenda tomorrow, concerning "the European developments of investments that await us in digital infrastructures, which we consider to be a priority".

These investments, he recalled, "will be at the heart of the 'Next Generation EU' program", the Union's recovery plan.

"We absolutely want - continued the premier - that Europe recover its gap with respect to the United States and China, countries that have invested heavily and are further ahead in digital infrastructures. Even if it is a constantly evolving technology, we can recover this gap. But - he stressed - we must invest ".

"It is not just a problem - continued Conte - of advantages in terms of the so-called 'strategic autonomy', of the so-called 'digital sovereignty'", which are the terms used in the agenda of the European Council.

"It is obviously an advantage to have greater growth, to boost economic growth in various transversal sectors of activity, but above all - the premier noted - it is a great investment in human capital, because in this way we ensure a safer future for new generations, for our young people. And therefore - Conte concluded - it concerns a human capital that starts from school, and then university and research ".

The first draft of conclusions of the EU summit on the situation in the eastern Mediterranean was rejected by both Greece and Cyprus.

European diplomatic sources report this.

Finding a synthesis among the 27 heads of state and government on relations with Turkey is complicated.

According to sources cited by the Greek daily Kathimerini, Greece finds the conclusions of the European Council meeting in Brussels unacceptable, because the text does not explicitly say that sanctions will be introduced against Turkey if Ankara does not demonstrate its willingness to ease tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean.