The EU may have reached its 'whatever it takes' moment.
The last time I covered the State of the Union conference in Florence was a year ago with the global fight against COVID-19 taking centre stage — this time it was a completely different call.
Back then I sat down with Alba nia’s Prime Minister Edi Rama to discuss the enlargement of the EU and his country’s bid for EU membership but now, war has come back to Europe and the EU faces the worst crisis since World War II.
Not only that: For the first time since the beginning of the war in Ukraine the unifying effects of the conflict have been wearing off. The event kicked off just after EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled a proposal for a phased oil embargo on Russia which sparked divisions among member states.
The speakers that flocked to the Italian city late last week had been booked to answer one crucial question: “Is Europe fit for the next generation?". The implementation of the EU’s recovery package to help citizens hit by the pandemic, rule of law concerns and the climate crisis were some of the talking points covered by the conference.
Yet as I arrived at Badia Fiesolana just outside Florence - for the first day of talks it was very clear that discussions around energy would top the agenda.
Vincenzo Amendola, Italy’s un-dersecretary for European Affairs told me what the EU needs is to proceed with revisions to the Treaties, reiterating what his prime minister, Mario Draghi, had told the EU Parliament plenary in Strasbourg a few days earlier. But most importantly Amendola stressed that Italy’s path to halt dependency on Russian energy sources is a one-way road, ie, there will be no turning back.
A vision that despite differ-ences, many people in Florence shared, including Spain’s Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera Rodríguez.
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I met with her at the end of one of the most interesting panels of the day titled “Achieving Europe’s great energy challenge” also featuring Kadri Simson, the EU’s Energy Commissioner — an issue that went hand in hand with another session entitled “Will the Ukraine crisis weaken Europe’s climate and energy policy?”
I put the same question straight to Belgium’s deputy Prime Minister, Petra De Sutter, who was invited to the panel. She told me that it’s rather the contrary and that moving away from Russian gas will accelerate the EU’s transi