Earlier this week Mario Draghi, former President of the European Central Bank, and former Italian Prime Minister, submitted a report looking into the challenges faced by industry and the corporate world in the EU single market.

The Draghi report, 397 pages long, was requested by the European Commission as announced by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her 2023 State of the Union address. It is entitled The Future of European Competitiveness.

The Draghi report submits a large number of recommendations, around 170.

The report will serve to focus the EU debate into the future of Europe. It examines in detail ten sectors namely energy, critical raw materials, digitalisation and advanced technologies, energy intensive industries, clean technologies, the car industry, defense, space, the pharmaceutical industry, and transport. It also examines a number of horizontal policies, namely: accelerating innovation, closing the skills gap, sustaining investment, revamping competition and strengthening governance.

Discussing the details, both at an EU level as well as on a national level are pleasures yet to come.

Among the contentious issues is the recommendation to reduce the application of the unanimity rule and to move towards more qualified majority decision making. This proposal has been around for a long time. It is a dangerous proposal as it signifies that the large countries in the EU would increase exponentially their influence on decisions taken. It is definitely not in Malta's interest.

The Green Group in the European Parliament, commenting on the Draghi report has noted that it recognises that there is an urgent need for EU action on decarbonisation, competitiveness and jobs. MEP Terry Reintke, co-Chair of the Green Group has pointed out that the Draghi report recognises that competitiveness and decarbonisation are two sides of the same coin. She emphasised that the green transition of Europe's industry is an opportunity to create jobs and radically improve our lives as well as secure our future.

A very relevant comment is that of Anouk Puymartin, policy manager of Birdlife Europe who emphasised that a stable economy is not possible in the absence of healthy ecosystems. This is a matter which is not appreciated by the Draghi report as it generally tries to drive the message home that environmental protection and regulation are a barrier to competitiveness.  This is a Draghi invitation to dismantle environmental regulation, a proposal which is repeatedly emphasised in various parts of the report. Definitely an unacceptable recommendation which the centre-right in the EU Parliament will try to use in order to further undermine the EU Green Deal and other environmental initiatives.

Closer to home we will possibly face some other problems.

In Italy, for example, the debate on the use of nuclear energy is being encouraged as one of the possibilities through which neighbouring Italy can address the challenge of decarbonisation. The debate on nuclear energy in Italy is an ongoing one. Throughout the years Italy has already faced two referenda as a result of which nuclear energy was rejected. The first was in November 1987, the second in June 2011. The first one was a reaction to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the second was heavily influenced by the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

It will not be long before the Italian government tries to reactivate Berlusconi's nuclear reactor plans which were last ditched as a result of the June 2011 nuclear referendum. Those plans catered for a number of nuclear reactor plants on the Italian mainland, one of which was along the southern coast of Sicily at Palma di Montechiaro. This is less than 100 kilometres to the North West of Gozo, meaning that it will be too close for comfort.

I have already written extensively about all this in these columns. The most recent being my article entitled A Nuclear Reactor in Sicily? (TMIS: 15 January 2023).

Southern Sicily is a seismic zone and no amount of top-notch secure technology can be a guarantee that accidents will not happen or that they will be kept under control when they do. When the Fukushima nuclear accident occurred, the evacuation zone was established within a radius of two hundred kilometres. This signifies that a nuclear accident along the southern coast of Sicily could possibly result in the need to evacuate the whole Maltese islands.

When the nuclear plant at Chernobyl exploded on 26 April 1986, the resulting nuclear debris impacted 40 per cent of the European continent. Most of us clearly remember warnings on Italian television addressed to the Sicilian population to thoroughly wash fruit and vegetables in view of the fact that wind had spread radioactive debris as far as the Sicilian mainland, 2000 kilometres away from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.

We are not aware as to whether the Maltese islands were then impacted as the health authorities in Malta were silent about the matter.

Ultimately this is what we may eventually have to face 100 kilometres from Palma di Montechiaro.

 

Carmel Cacopardo is a former Chairperson of ADPD-The Green Party