Draghi flies to Berlin: migrants and banking union at the center of the 'face to face' with Merkel

• Migrants, Draghi: "We need an EU response in solidarity"

• Migrants, Draghi-Macron conversation: an incisive EU is needed in Africa

• Migrants, Merkel-Macron agreement to welcome 400 children from Lesbos

• EU, Ireland will welcome 10 migrants from Italy, the first country.

  Brussels encourages solidarity

• Migrants.

  At the start of transfers to Lampedusa, 800 leave the hotspot.

  Mayor: "Government and EU act"

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June 21, 2021 "We talked above all about Covid, we are both cautious. We cannot yet say that we are close to herd immunity". Thus Chancellor Angela Merkel during the joint press conference in Berlin with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. The 'face to face' between Draghi and Merkel took place in view of the European Council to be held next Thursday and Friday in Brussels. The meeting was held in a very hot Berlin, with over 30 degrees in the shade, at the Bundeskanzleramt in Willy Brandt Strasse, or 'Bundeswaschmaschine' (the federal 'washing machine'), as Berliners call it because of the postmodern architecture. After the press conference, the business dinner. 

Merkel and Draghi addressed various topics, one of the main ones - in addition to the pandemic - that of migration policies. Today the Republic publishes an interview with the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, in which, in addition to congratulations to the Italian premier, the door is closed to a new rescue mission at sea. A similar mission, moreover, was not requested by the Italian government, also because, in the absence of an agreement on the redistribution of migrants, the fear is that it would end up unloading all those rescued at sea on our coasts. Maas calls for an "overall approach", which addresses "the source node of the flows".

It is a hint of the external dimension, the one on which it is most likely to be able to find an agreement between the 27 Member States, which are still deeply divided on the issue of migration. The Pact on Migration proposed last September by the European Commission has not made great strides, so much so that the Commissioner for Internal Affairs Ylva Johansson has publicly and repeatedly stigmatized the slowness with which the dossier is proceeding. However, something is moving: the Mediterranean countries (Med5: Italy, Spain, Greece, Malta and Cyprus) a couple of weeks ago opened an agreement on the new EU agency for asylum (now it's an office, Easo), abandoning the 'all or nothing' logic to proceed in small steps, on less controversial dossiers. 

The completion of the Banking Union is also called for, "but there can be no mutualisation of risks in the context of a common deposit insurance". Yet the formulation is such that, Guttenberg observes, "it allows Edis, as long as there is no mutualisation, whatever that means exactly." On Next Generation Eu, the CDU / Csu, continues Guttenberg in a thread on Twitter, "insists that it is temporary and one-off, which is true. It also says that it cannot lead to a debt union and that it cannot. be a mutualization of debt, all things that will not happen ".

In the last European Council there was no discussion on the issue, also due to a certain reluctance of President Charles Michel to face debates on highly divisive issues, such as that of migration. This time, however, migration should be on the official agenda of the summit, also due to the insistence of the countries of first arrival, which are pushing for them to return to the top of the EU agenda, since it is not enough not to talk about a problem to solve it.

How the discussion between the leaders will end, with the elections in France and Germany in sight, is not known, but it is likely that the heads of state and government will focus on the external dimension, that is, on relations with countries of origin and transit. of migrants, where it is less difficult to find a consensus, rather than on the redistribution of those who arrived in Europe irregularly, an issue on which the Member States are still, and for years, deeply divided.

In any case, Maas, in the interview, clearly makes it clear that Germany is fully aware that the so-called Dublin system, which places on the shoulders of the countries of first arrival the costs associated with welcoming migrants, is no longer sustainable: Berlin, he stresses, "it would fully support a European pact" on migrants and a "key" should be found for the "redistribution of refugees". Those who are not there should contribute in another way, financially for example, to "protect the external borders of the EU".

It seems the 'solidarity à la carte' that Italy has always opposed, together with other countries of Southern Europe, but at least there is dialogue with Berlin, unlike what happens with other countries. The Italian Prime Minister also raised the issue of migration in the last extraordinary European Council, at the end of May, but it was not on the agenda. In the absence

of a redistribution mechanism for migrants rescued at sea, the prospect for this summer, if no progress is made, is that of ad hoc agreements 'propitiated' each time by the Commission, with fewer and fewer countries willing to contribute , as we have seen recently. A prospect that any government would gladly avoid.

The Italian Prime Minister also raised the issue of migration in the last extraordinary European Council, at the end of May, but it was not on the agenda. It has not been discussed, but it was mentioned by both Draghi and the Spanish Pedro Sanchez, two heads of government who are grappling with the same problem, the influx of migrants from the African continent, albeit with different specificities. 

In the background there is also the theme of the rules on public budgets, which for now are suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but which could return into force in 2023, if in the meantime they are not changed. Today Armin Laschet's CDU / CSU publishes its electoral program, in which it opens to a "development" of the rules in force without "watering them down", as explained by Lucas Guttenberg of  Jacques Delors Institute of Berlin.

Basically, for Guttenberg "Laschet seems to want to take the same course as Merkel: no door closed prematurely, but also no substantial opening or proactive attitude. Not necessarily bad, but clearly the push must come from somewhere else". It will be seen if on this terrain, which is historically more congenial to him, Draghi will be able in the coming months to push Germany to take more decisive steps, after the historic green light for Next Generation Eu.