July 2020

Let’s not sulk the pleasure! An historic agreement has been extracted at the end of four long days and nights by the 27 Heads of State and Government. The main achievement is not to be found in who came out on top in the haggling or in the – apparently – muscular exchanges between the protagonists, but rather in the preservation of the essential features of the proposal elaborated by the Commission. Of course, one cannot but regret the strengthening of the regime of individual national rebates and the evisceration of any substantive content of the conditionality linked to the respect of fundamental European values in accessing the Coronavirus Rescue Fund (“CRF”); nevertheless, it is undeniable that the EU has…

France in the eye of the storm! The “cataclysm” born from the pandemic is conferring on the European Union a role of “catalyser” in the articulation of the measures designed to support the recovery; it may be a new example of a salutary crisis enabling the EU to make decisive progress. The ambiguous results of the recent French municipal elections reinforce considerably the pressure on Member States to choose between a shared European sovereignty and, alternatively, following an independent course leading to the inevitable demise of the EU. Commentators seem fairly unanimous in considering that abstention was the main feature of a poll that usually enjoys a high rate of participation due to the preponderance of local issues. With an…