Good morning and welcome to the Euro Express.

Europe’s largest political family, the center-right European People’s Party, will lose its president. Donald Tusk Announce He will step down Return to Polish politics and try to revive the fate of the opposition. Talks about his successor at EPP will begin in the fall.

On the opposite side of Polish politics, Prime Minister Mateus Morawiecki was appointed as the ruling Deputy Chairman of the Law and Justice Party, consolidating his position as succeeding Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who was on Saturday Re-elected, he said this will be his last term.

Our main focus today will be on the EU’s attempts to enrich its Investment Strategy Aimed at countering China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative. We will unravel the latest draft proposal that the EU foreign ministers will discuss this month.

At the same time, after a difficult start to Ljubljana last week, Slovenia, the EU’s rotating presidency, may be re-examined. The Prime Minister Janez Jansha Members of the European Parliament will be cross-examined at a hearing in Strasbourg tomorrow.

We will study Italy’s options for dealing with its troubled banks, Siena, sa. de, Once the coronavirus pandemic support is phased out.

From buzzwords to reality

So far, the West’s response to China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative has been more buzzwords and lofty ambitions than specific projects.

This month, the EU foreign ministers will try to change this statement because they are pushing for more tangible progress through the EU’s “Connectivity Initiative”, writing Sam Fleming In Brussels.

The draft Council conclusion seen by Euro Express urges the adoption of a “connected geostrategic approach” and sets the goal of identifying “globally influential and visible projects and actions”.

They follow the promise made by Joe Biden and his G7 partner in Cornwall last month create By 2035, a “rebuilt better” infrastructure partnership can provide developing countries with an estimated US$40 trillion in funding.

For a long time, G7 countries have expressed deep doubts about Beijing’s “One Belt One Road” initiative. Since its launch in 2013, the initiative has been deployed by Beijing as a strategic tool, as dozens of countries have agreed to China-backed projects such as ports, railways, and bridges.

Critics warn that the plan will eventually lead to onerous debt conditions in recipient countries, and sometimes projects with problematic business cases or poor construction and environmental standards.

“As the negative impact of the’Belt and Road’ is becoming more and more obvious in countries such as Montenegro, Pakistan or Sri Lanka, governments around the world are increasingly looking for sustainable alternatives,” said a senior EU diplomat. “The EU’s connectivity initiative can provide this.”

The ministerial conclusion will be adopted at the Foreign Affairs Committee meeting this month, calling on EU capitals and their development agencies, as well as the National Multilateral Development Bank, the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The ministers will conclude that the new “strategic connectivity” project should be included in the current 2021-27 EU budget to supplement private investment. The ministers stated that public finances, including loans and guarantees, could also “flood” into private capital, while calling for a “unified narrative” to structure the EU’s activities in the region.

Of course, the question is how coherent and substantive the joint efforts of the EU and major powers including the United States, Japan and India will prove to be.

There is no explicit mention of the lack of specific target figures in the draft conclusions of the Chinese Board of Directors-just as G7 statement last monthInstead, they listed the EU budget plans that ministers would like to learn from when seeking greater action in Brussels.

None of these constitute “competitors” fully formed in the “Belt and Road” initiative. The EU and its allies are lagging far behind China, and the idea of ??whether this wish is a reality is still controversial.

But the draft conclusion shows that EU member states hope to invest more political influence and financial strength behind their global connectivity ambitions. These conclusions are intended to sound a wake-up call for the European Commission and its foreign affairs agencies, urging them to speed up their pace.

Sour opening

Slovenia held the first full week of the six-month EU presidency with the country’s Prime Minister Janez Jansa Belligerent characteristics Mood, write Sam Fleming.

The tone was set at the opening ceremony of Ljubljana’s presidency, because Jansa complained that small countries, including Slovenia, were considered second-class citizens of the European Union; he was angry at the apparent shortcomings of his country’s judicial system. ; And accused the media of being “one-sided” in the report.

The nearly two-hour press conference on Friday took a surreal turn. The prime minister dimmed the lights at a large conference center outside Ljubljana and showed reporters a video claiming that the media of his country had trouble with him. bias. In another meeting, his Minister of the Interior targeted the “pigs” at the top of the European bureaucracy, but did not specify who he was thinking.

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The day before, Jansa shocked the visiting European Commissioner in a closed-door meeting, accusing two Slovenian judges of political prejudice, and used a photo displayed on a large screen to illustrate his point of view, they are with the center-left member of the European Parliament.

This strategy prompted the angry EU Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans (Frans Timmermans) Refuse to join “Family portrait” with other committee members and the prime minister at the conference center.

Jansa insisted at a press conference with the expressionless European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that his government will become an “honest intermediary” because it will be in the next six months. Seek to advance EU priorities, including the rule of law.

But Jansa’s willingness to use the platform provided by the Slovenian presidency to express his political dissatisfaction has frustrated the EU’s senior policymakers, who are eager to advance a dense list of legislation.

Slovenia’s ministers and officials are formulating a detailed agenda covering immigration, health, technology, EU expansion, economic recovery, and, crucially, the large-scale carbon reduction and environmental legislation plans launched by the EU this month.

Advancing EU priorities requires close cooperation between Brussels and Ljubljana-a goal that will not be helped by tensions in high-level relations.

Yansa will testify on his country’s ambitions at the European Parliament in Strasbourg tomorrow. Many members of the European Parliament are preparing to fight, and there seems to be no reason to expect that their tone will improve after the presidency opens.

Daily chart: still offline

Driven by the rapid increase in companies using digital technology, Italy’s booming commodity exports have become a key driver of the country’s economic rebound from last year’s historic recession. But the vast majority of small and medium-sized enterprises in Italy still have no online sales business. (Read more here)

What to do with Monte dei Paschi

Can Mario Draghi achieve a goal that all his previous predecessors as prime minister of Italy failed to achieve: complete the integration of the Italian banking system and solve the troubled lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena once and for all?

Although Rome offers a package of preferential terms to promote larger and healthy lender acquisitions, there are still many unknown factors and several factors that make MPS unattractive to potential investors-including a legal risk totaling 10 billion euros, wrote David Giglione In Rome.

The Bank of Tuscany is the oldest bank in the world. Its history was rough. It led to a national bailout four years ago, costing Italian taxpayers 5.4 billion euros and giving 64% of the shares to the government.

Country hope Find a solution to uninstall MPS Before next year’s budget. But the negotiations are temporarily deadlocked.

Once you have a better understanding of the impact of the extraordinary measures taken by the government on the system. .. It’s just a question of who will take the first step

The sale of MPS to UniCredit remains the first choice of the Ministry of Finance. However, the Milan-based bank said its first task is to carry out internal restructuring and revising its business plan under the guidance of its new CEO, Andrea Orcel.

Other options for consolidating the country’s banking system include splitting up some of the assets of MPS — whose vulnerability is expected to be further exposed in the stress test at the end of July — and forming a large banking group, with the exception of UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, in Banca Popolare di Near Milano.

According to Giorgio di Giorgio, professor of monetary theory and policy at Louis University, the different levels of the Italian banking system are full of energy and excitement. “At any time, it may be beneficial to mergers and acquisitions, which will lead to system integration,” he said.

However, he added that the bank “is still observing and waiting for the moment of uncertainty caused by the pandemic to pass.”

What to watch today

1. European Investment Bank President Werner Hoyer appeared in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg

2. German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a summit with leaders of the Western Balkans

… Later this week

1. The European Commission will put forward proposals for sustainable finance and EU green bond standards tomorrow

2. European Commissioner for Brexit Maros Sefcovic (Maros Sefcovic) in EU-UK Forum tomorrow

3. G20 finance ministers meet in Venice on Friday

4. Bulgaria holds parliamentary elections on Sunday

Noteworthy

From a social perspective, everything we present must be credible. This can be said to be the biggest transformation operation in living memory.Will be tough

• Affordable cars: Frans Timmermans, Vice President of Green Policy of the European Commission Tell the financial times Brussels is preparing a multi-pronged strategy to reduce the cost of electric vehicles and enable “all Europeans” to use cleaner cars.

• Le Pen minus Le Pen: Marina Le Pen is seeking Quell criticism She has “detoxified” the political party founded by her father. “We will not go backwards,” she said at a rally yesterday. Although she failed to occupy any area in the election last month, she was reappointed as the leader of the National Unity Party.

• Erdogan plummeted: The architectural frenzy of the Turkish President Raise an objection, A series of public opinion surveys showed that his party’s support rate was at a historically low level, and even his ancestral strongholds also appeared critical voices.

• The epidemic is pessimistic: According to a YouGov survey released yesterday, three-quarters of German residents expect an increase in coronavirus infections and new lockdowns in the fall. Deutsche Welle Report.

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