Introduction by President Meloni

I’ll give you an overview. It was a long, concrete and I believe very fruitful discussion on the various points on the European Council meeting agenda. I am satisfied with the Conclusions regarding the Middle East crisis; they reflect how delicate the matter is. I found the discussion to be very serious, very sensible. The European Union’s priority at the moment, and what it reiterates as being its priority, is the same set of priorities that Italy had also reaffirmed, and that is to do our best to avoid an escalation of the conflict, work on humanitarian efforts and work on a long-term, structural solution for the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, which however must be envisaged now; so, being concrete about the ‘two peoples and two States’ solution.

We also spoke about Ukraine. We confirmed our full support for Ukraine, which is not something to be underestimated, particularly in the current context. As I have said to you, when Russia invaded Ukraine a year and a half ago, some of us said at the time that, should the rules for peaceful coexistence be pushed aside, we would see many other crisis areas and, unfortunately, that is what we are seeing in these days, and that is why I think it is now all the more necessary to continue to maintain our support for Ukraine, and not to let our guard down on this.

We of course talked a lot about the economy, starting with the medium-term revision of the multiannual budget. Two matters that are very dear to Italy are included in the Council’s conclusions: the view to finding a solution by the end of the year, and working on a ‘package logic’.

For us, a priority in that ‘package’ is migration, particularly to work on Italy’s strategy regarding external borders and agreements with countries of origin and of transit. I must tell you that, following this discussion, this is a shared priority of the European Council: everyone agrees on the fact that new resources have to be allocated to this. I consider this to be particularly important, as I consider the whole part on migration to be particularly important, in relation to which discussions over the last few hours have focused on the risks particularly linked to terrorism, in short to the phenomena we have also seen here in Brussels. However, the Council’s conclusions also make reference to the letter that Ursula von der Leyen sent to the Heads of State and Government prior to the beginning of the meeting, regarding the progress of practical implementation of a strategy that, as you know, Italy has strongly supported. This is something that, objectively speaking, was unthinkable a year ago on this matter.

Going back to the economy, and apologies for going back, we discussed a matter that is of crucial importance for everyone, particularly for us: the new Stability and Growth Pact. Also in this regard, the Council’s conclusions make reference to finalising the new governance rules by the end of the year. This was also not a given, and negotiations are not easy I can tell you; we were up until late last night, because starting positions are different, but I am also happy about the fact that some steps forward were made yesterday, I believe also thanks to an important contribution by Italy.

So, overall, and I hope I’m not forgetting anything, these are the main issues; we also discussed many others. 
Overall, I am happy with the Conclusions, in which Italy’s interests feature strongly.

[Courtesy translation]