The Brief – Letta report has everything and nothing to do with June elections

As Brussels emerges from a severe case of last week’s ‘Lettamania’, the question must be asked: Who will benefit? 

The report by former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta triggered fevered discussions in Brussels about the single market, economic competitiveness, and new EU funds.

In standard democracies, high-level visionary reports like Letta’s are written to sway voters ahead of elections. But even the most ardent EU fan could not claim that voters will be leafing through Letta’s 146-page offering as they queue for the polling booths in June. 

In reality, the Letta Report will not influence the outcome of the June elections. But it will help leaders put their desired political spin on the election’s results.

‘Absolutely the right time’

In September 2023, the Commission and Council agreed that the single market should be deepened during the EU’s next five-year cycle and asked Letta to provide a report on its future.

In April 2024, Letta presented the report and recommended that the Commission and Council indeed go about deepening the single market, in various ways but with a clear pro-business slant.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen feted the report for “coming at absolutely the right time”.

On this point, she’s right. 

Thanks to last week’s Lettamania, the single-market agenda, with its pro-business slant and focus on competitiveness, is now firmly embedded as one of the election’s supposed ‘talking points’. 

And the European Commission and Council will be able to interpret the election results in this context.

Irrespective of how citizens vote, the Letta Report helps to ensure that the next cycle will be dominated by an industry-friendly single-market agenda, which puts less emphasis on social and environmental concerns. 

And in case Lettamania was not enough to secure this agenda, we can also look forward to Draghimania in June. 

Mario Draghi’s report on economic competitiveness, which shares a similar starting point as Letta’s, will land after the elections, so there will be no opportunity for voters to react, even if they wanted to.

But the Draghi report will come just in time for the post-election haggling over top political positions. So, at this crucial time, economic and business concerns will again just happen to be at the top of the political agenda.

Cynicism

This Brussels manoeuvring is not exactly undemocratic. Even if they are not directly elected, the EU institutions are entitled to push their own agendas. And the European Parliament will get a say on the final shape of future legislation, even if they are stuck with the overall agenda set by the next Commission.

But it is cynical, and shows to June voters the limits of the election’s influence.

Letta and Draghi’s reports are about ‘strengthening’ and ‘future-proofing’ Europe – with exciting new ideas on capital markets, a defence union, enlargement, or common debt.

However, a strong Europe must be based on a vibrant democracy, and a resilient Europe must stay responsive to its citizens’ wishes, rather than overly relying upon a top-down approach.

As leaders get busy reshaping the EU, a push to further strengthen its democratic basis should be their starting point.

The Roundup

The European Parliament overwhelmingly approved a watered-down version of the EU’s long-awaited platform work directive at a plenary on Wednesday, ending two years of intense negotiations with 554 votes in favour and 56 against.

Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, Germany’s youngest left party, probably has enough support to create and lead a new group in the EU Parliament after the June elections, lead candidate Fabio De Masi confirmed on Wednesday, opening the door to “progressive forces” in a break with traditional left-wing dynamic.

Faced with global competition from countries with cheap renewable energy, the EU should embrace a partial deindustrialisation rather than subsidise uncompetitive industries, according to a new report from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research published on Wednesday.

Europe and the United States should build a “transatlantic single market” to combat the “aggressive attitude” of much of the rest of the world, former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta, author of a strategic report on the EU’s single market, said on Tuesday.

Spain’s Minister of the Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera has been nominated to lead the centre-left PSOE into the European elections and is likely become the country’s EU commissioner afterwards.

Maximilian Krah, an MEP for the Alternative for Germany (AfD/ID), announced he will remain in the running as the lead EU candidate, following a meeting with party leadership called amid a China espionage scandal.

The EU’s refugee funding for Turkey does not have enough impact, while the European Commission has failed to present a sufficient cost analysis and long-term plan, according to an EU auditors’ report published on Wednesday.

The French beet industry is urging the government to give the green light on the use of acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide allowed in the EU but banned in France, to put an end to the distortion in competition among member states.

The European Parliament approved on Tuesday new rules to make products sold in the EU more reusable, repairable, upgradeable, and recyclable.

Germany has been hit by espionage scandals in recent days, with several persons being arrested for allegedly spying for Russia and China, but the threat is prevalent across the bloc, with several national agencies sounding the alarm. 

For more policy news, don’t miss this week’s Green Brief and the Health Brief.

Look out for…

• European Parliament’s final plenary in Strasbourg Monday-Thursday.
• Commissioner Kadri Simson delivers online keynote speech at 4th “WindWorks. Connecting Industries” energy conference on Thursday.
• Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen in Romania, meets with PM Marcel Ciolacu on Thursday.

Views are the author’s

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/Alice Taylor]