HOW DRAGHI IS MAKING ITALY A POWER PLAYER IN EUROPE
The new prime minister is leveraging his European relationships and his solid reputation to make his country a force on the continent in a way it has not been in decades.
The European Union was stumbling through a Covid-19 vaccine rollout marred by shortages and logistical bungling in late March when Mario Draghi took matters into his own hands. The new Italian prime minister seized a shipment of vaccines destined for Australia — and along with them, an opportunity to show that a new, aggressive and potent force had arrived in the European bloc.
The move shook up a Brussels leadership that had seemed to be asleep at the switch. Within weeks, in part from his pressing and engineering behind the scenes, the EU had authorised even broader and harsher measures to curb exports of Covid-19 vaccines badly needed in Europe. The Australia experiment, as officials in Brussels and Italy call it, was a turning point, both for Europe and Italy. It also demonstrated that Mr Draghi, renowned as the former European Central Bank president who helped save the euro, was prepared to lead Europe from behind, where Italy has found itself for years, lagging its European partners in economic dynamism and much-needed reforms.
In his short time in office — he took power in February after a political crisis — Mr Draghi has quickly leveraged his European relationships, his skill in navigating EU institutions and his nearly messianic reputation to make Italy a player on the continent in a way it has not been in decades.
With his friend Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany leaving office in September, President Emmanuel Macron of France facing tough elections next year and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen struggling to demonstrate competence, Mr Draghi is poised to fill a leadership vacuum in Europe.
“The difference is that everybody, when Mario Draghi speaks, knows that he is not just pushing, boosting the Italian interest” but rather the EU’s, said Vincenzo Amendola, Italy’s minister for European affairs.
Knowing full well that Mr Draghi derived his influence from his international reputation, Mr Amendola said that given the potential void of leadership in Europe, “you need stable leaders who bring confidence”.
At home, Mr Draghi’s vaccine gambit in March provided political red meat to an Italian population starved for vaccines and a sense of agency, but it was calculated to improve Europe’s leverage.
Abroad, his first stop, to Libya, sought
to restore waning Italian influence in the troubled former Italian colony that is critical to Italy’s energy needs and to efforts to stem illegal migration from Africa. He has also not shied away from picking a fight with Turkey’s autocratic leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“With these dictators — let us call them what they are — one must be frank in expressing one’s diversity of views and visions of society,” Mr Draghi said.
But it is within the European Union that Mr Draghi has shown that Italy is now punching above its weight.
Last week, Mr Draghi, who is by turns droll and wonky but always direct, kept the pressure on Brussels when it came to vaccine exports. He referred
to “lightweight” efforts in the original contract negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies, and noted that despite its new tough rules on export bans, the EU had yet to act.
But he also deftly balanced his criticism of Ms von der Leyen’s commission by defending her after Mr Erdogan denied her a chair, rather than a sofa, during a visit to Turkey last week, saying he was “very sorry for the humiliation”.
In his debut in a European meeting as Italy’s prime minister in February, Mr Draghi, 73, made it clear that he was not there to cheerlead. He told an economic summit including heavy hitters like his European Central Bank successor, Christine Lagarde, to “curb
your enthusiasm” when it came to talk about a closer fiscal union.
That sort of union is Mr Draghi’s long-term ambition. But before he can get anywhere near that, or tackle deep economic problems at home, those around him say Mr Draghi is keenly aware that his priority needs to be solving Europe’s response to the pandemic.
Italian officials say his distance from the contract negotiations, which were completed before he took office, gave him the freedom to act. He suggested AstraZeneca had misled the bloc about its supply of vaccine, selling Europe the same doses two or three times, and he zeroed in on an export ban.
“He understood straight away that the issue was vaccinations and the problem was supplies,” said Lia Quartapelle, a member of parliament in charge of foreign affairs for Italy’s Democratic Party.
On Feb 25, he joined a European Council videoconference with Ms von der Leyen and other EU leaders. The heads of state warmly welcomed him. “We owe you so much,” Bulgaria’s prime minister told him.
Then Ms von der Leyen gave an optimistic slide presentation about Europe’s vaccine rollout. But the new member of the club bluntly told Ms von der Leyen that he found her vaccine forecast “hardly reassuring” and that he did not know whether the numbers promised by AstraZeneca could be trusted, according to an official present at the meeting. He implored Brussels to get tougher and go faster.
Ms Merkel joined him in scrutinising Ms von der Leyen’s numbers, which put the commission president, a former German defence minister, on the back foot. Mr Macron, who had championed Ms von der Leyen’s nomination but quickly formed a strategic alliance with Mr Draghi, piled on. He urged Brussels, which had negotiated the vaccine contracts on behalf of its members, to “put pressure on corporations not complying”.
Then, in early March, as shortages of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine continued to disrupt Europe’s rollout, Mr Draghi found the perfect gift for Ms von der Leyen: 250,000 doses of seized AstraZeneca vaccine earmarked for Australia.
Ms Quartapelle, who spoke with Mr Draghi’s diplomatic adviser the day after the shipment freeze, said he told her Mr Draghi “was on the phone a lot with von der Leyen” and that “he worked a lot with von der Leyen to convince her”.
The move was appreciated in Brussels, according to officials in the commission, because it took the onus off Ms von der Leyen and gave her political cover while simultaneously allowing her to seem tough for signing off on it.
The episode has become a clear example of how the prime minister builds relationships with the potential to yield big payoffs not only for himself and Italy, but all of Europe.
He understood straight away that the issue was vaccinations and the problem was supplies.
ITALIAN MP,
LIA QUARTAPELLE