The "dwarf" Holland with its tax havens is keeping Europe in check

So Giuseppe Conte yesterday after the second round in Brussels. "Italy has decided to undertake, on its own initiative, a path of reforms that will allow it to run but will demand a serious common fiscal policy, in order to face once and for all trade surpluses and fiscal dumping, to compete on equal terms ". "With Rutte I have a good personal relationship but the conflict is very hard even if he has never allowed himself to ask me for this or that reform".“Dear Mark, I understand that you only have in mind the elections that will take place in your country in the spring. And I also understand that everyone has their Salvini ”.

Apparently, attempts are being made to accommodate requests from all countries. Italy is ready to accept that total subsidies fall from 500 billion to 420 billion with loans from 250 to 330. The figure will always be 750 billion. Yesterday there was also a very hard night-time confrontation between Angela Merkel and Macron when the idea of ​​not talking (put pen to paper) about the emergency brake was developed, that is the possibility for a country to ask for an additional investigation into the plan. reforms by another Member State before aid is granted. But the real match is between Italy, the third largest economy in Europe, and Holland, the leader of the so-called "frugal" countries (Finland, Austria and Denmark).

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, faced with the intransigence of his Dutch counterpart Rutte, takes a counterattack by suggesting that he will be ready to bring to light the artifices of the Flemish tax haven. Ready, Conte implies, to block the rebates requested by the frugal and the maintenance of the withholding on import duties at 20% collected by the Customs Union which favors Holland in a particular way.

The weapons that Italy will use today

Emergency brake and governance of the loans granted to the States are the nodes on which Italy has decided to oppose. As reported by Sole24Ore, there are two options on which Italy could play its game by placing them on the negotiating table today. The first is that of the so-called opting out, an agreement at 26 that keeps Holland out of both post-Covid aid and its control mechanism. The idea was also put forward yesterday by the former premier Enrico Letta and in reality it could also be a first step towards a real exit from the European Union.

La second card that the Italian government could put on the table today at noon, and it will really be a high noon, is that of an appeal to the European Court of Justice. If the Netherlands were to keep the point to the end and insist on that control mechanism on the disbursement of aid which in fact creates a right of veto for the individual Member State, the Italian government could try to demonstrate before the body that it has the task of ensuring compliance with Community law and the incompatibility of such a mechanism with the European treaties. As the Netherlands would like, the Commission and Parliament would be cut off from decisions.

 

The "dwarf" Holland with its tax havens is keeping Europe in check

| EVIDENCE 1, MONDO |