Italy is the one that started it, the one that is on the ropes, the one that has made the issue a political priority, the one that has turned the issue into an open battle with Germany, the one that has the most demands and the one that, in the end, has decided stop, once again, the negotiation. The arrivals of immigrants and asylum seekers to the country's coasts have skyrocketed in recent months, arrivals, shipwrecks and deaths are multiplying, political pressure is multiplying, and the Government of Giorgia Meloni has preferred to get up from the table this Thursday, and leave its partners temporarily hanging, than to accept an agreement on the regulation of migration crisis management, because it knows that it would have been presented as a concession, a defeat.

After noon, Minister Matteo Piantedosi, who did not even intervene in the session, got up from the table in Brussels and took the plane back early, while the rest of the EU Interior Ministers continued with the agenda.. Rome was not going to get what it wanted, it had become clear, and rather than assuming a series of relatively minor changes in the regulations that are being fought these days, it opted for the most abrupt exit.. It is not a definitive break, because it does not have the capacity to veto, but rather the umpteenth political gesture, a staging more internal than external.. Meloni has to show that he is being implacable, that he does not compromise, that his demands will be heard. And today it couldn't, since the last compromise text had come to fruition after Germany imposed a series of modifications.

The text of the regulation is practically closed, there is a “large, very large majority” to move it forward, according to the Spanish Fernando Grande Marlaska, who chaired the meeting.. And given that “there are no major political obstacles, it will be approved in the coming days” by the ambassadors of the 27, as promised by the Spaniard and the Interior Commissioner.. Ylva Johansson, at the end of the Council.

All sources consulted agree. Italy needed to throw a punch to be able to assure at home that it had stood. The EU is negotiating the Migration and Asylum Pact, which is legally articulated around five different regulations. The first two, on Eurodac (fingerprint comparison system used to help determine the Member State responsible for studying an asylum application) and common procedures and guarantees, were approved some time ago and are in fact almost completed in the negotiation with the European Parliament. The next two, on Asylum and Migration Management and a Common Procedure on International Protection, were agreed upon by a qualified majority in June, with the vote against and the furious opposition of Poland and Hungary, as it speaks of mandatory reception or economic compensation. of up to 20,000 euros per rejected person, who do not accept.

The fifth remained, that of crisis management. In July it was Germany that stopped him, considering that he did not adequately respect human rights. The Greens, part of Chancellor Scholz's coalition, have been very insistent. And this summer the position on arrivals and treatment of refugees and NGOs has caused a tough, ugly and recurring fight between Berlin and Rome. On Wednesday, after many discussions, the Spanish presidency presented a compromise text that satisfied the German demands, but which has been unpalatable for the Meloni Government..

There are two main points. The first, the complete rewriting of article 5 of the regulation, which spoke of a relaxation of the minimum “standards” with which asylum seekers must be treated when arriving in countries during a crisis.. Summarized and simplified, it means that Italy demanded that in the face of a serious and rapid crisis, in the face of massive arrivals, standards could be lowered, in terms of type of accommodation, space requirements, assistance, etc.. The new document excludes that possibility.

The second factor is the so-called “instrumentalization”. The spirit of the regulation seeks to persecute and punish the “instrumentalization” of arrivals, but it is considering whether a third country, or a specific organization, intends to play with the lives of the desperate to put pressure on or destabilize a European country.. Italy wanted NGOs that rescue people to be included, after having had repeated clashes with them, arresting their crew members and accusing them of collusion with trafficking mafias.. With the new wording that would also disappear. That's why the sit-in.

The facts are that there is a sufficient majority to pass the text, but no one wants to approve them without Italy, it would not make sense when it is the country that is experiencing these crises and arrivals the most.. The feeling of European colleagues is that Meloni needs to sell it at home. “We need time to study the text,” said the head of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, who is precisely in Berlin to meet with his counterpart.. They hope it will be quick, that within a few days, at the level of ambassadors and without so much pressure from the cameras, she will be able to argue that she has managed to turn around again and present herself as victorious, without substantially modifying what seems good to the rest..

Italian sources believe that the agreement will be complicated in a few days. It is not a technical question, but a very political one.. And next week the heads of State and Government of the 27 will meet in Granada, so Meloni could try to take the issue to the highest level.. “A lot of progress has been made, we are almost at the goal. There is only a difference in nuances, which concern us all, I do not want to individualize it in a single country,” said Marlaska.. “We have lacked a little time, but the satisfaction with the work done remains intact and we are convinced that in the coming days there will be a mandate from the Council to be able to negotiate with Parliament all the legal instruments of the Migration Pact. We are so convinced that I pledge my word that shortly, in a few days, we will have this crisis regulation,” the Spanish minister ventured..

The reference to the negotiation with the European Parliament is relevant. To put pressure on this issue of crisis management, the MEPs have in turn blocked the agreement on the first two in the so-called trilogues. Everything is agreed, but without a definitive green light. If the Council established its position on the regulation, the last step could begin now. And it is not trivial, because the legislature ends in a few months.

The European Union has been trying for years, decades, to push forward a new Migration and Asylum Pact, a divisive, delicate, very hot issue. It is the issue that generates the greatest friction and clashes and therefore a deep, transformative consensus has been impossible. It was not achieved during the savage crisis of 2015 and 2016, which almost destroyed Schengen, the free movement area. And it hasn't been achieved since then either. Technically, or formally, it is close, but the reality is very different. If in June it was Poland and Hungary that imposed the veto, now it is Rome. The Pact can move forward by qualified majority, but experience shows that this is very dangerous. There is no issue more sensitive, more politically explosive, than what affects the arrivals of African migrants, the identity issue and border management.. Approving it and someone not wanting to apply it, ending up in European Justice and while there is chaos, controls, suspicions and confrontations is potentially devastating, as has been seen..

The German Government has announced these days that it will reinforce mobile controls against human trafficking, especially on the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic, while waiting for consensus to be reached on the common European asylum system.. Slovenia and Austria are also experiencing enormous friction. Not to mention Italy and France themselves, or Greece that asks for more aid for new flows.

If someone asked continental citizens to choose an image, a moment, that in their opinion represented and symbolized what the European Union is and how it works, it is most likely that the majority would opt for a photo or video of a great summit.. One of those long Eurogroups or European Councils, a sleepless night with ministers or heads of State and Government fighting against the clock to rescue a partner, an aid fund or the details of climate or energy policies. But if that same question were asked to any of the regulars in the Brussels bubble, from officials to lobbyists to politicians, possibly the answer would be another, a very logical one but indecipherable for hundreds of millions of people: a trilogue.

It is no secret that the European Union works in complicated ways. The system, unique in the world, does not resemble that of local, regional or national governments, making it inaccessible. There are many institutions, many languages, many processes and their own jargon that rarely permeates even the street.. There is an inevitable part, because bringing representatives from 27 countries, with extremely different institutions, traditions, legal systems and practices, to agreement requires an extraordinary exercise of sophistication, flexibility, pragmatism and originality. But that complexity, opacity and distance is also the result of decades and decades of sought-after hermeticism.

The EU rises not only on the ashes of the Second World War, but also on the resentments, hatreds and prejudices matured over centuries. The first steps were economic, commercial, and technical in nature.. And since the model worked, it remained. That meant slow decisions, thinking and rethinking everything.. And also avoid light and stenographers at all costs. Resolve things behind closed doors, between ambassadors, between ministers.

Today's Union, in its configuration, its Treaties, its decision-making process and the adoption of acquis, is the result of those decades of expansion, growth, deepening, integration and patches. There is a Parliament, there are legal texts similar to a Constitution, and bodies such as the College of Commissioners that are somewhat reminiscent of a Council of Ministers.. But in practice, day-to-day life has little to do with it.

And trilogues are the best way to understand from the inside how sausages are made. They are technically informal, but absolutely essential. They are the logical evolution in the face of a political need. They receive very little media attention, little recognition, they are also opaque, technical. But they are the cogs that keep the European legislative machinery running.. These are the formats in which negotiations are carried out in secret, much more than at the level of ministers or heads of state, for days and nights by percentages, commas and adjectives.. But also where everyone, officials and seasoned politicians, trying all kinds of tricks, sharpen their knives and do everything possible to scratch something.

Legislative initiative

In the EU, the legislative initiative lies with the European Commission. It is the one with the bulk of the technical staff, with 30,000 specialist officials in all fields. They are the ones who shape the directives or regulations that are later approved by the commissioners.. From there, that idea, that proposal, begins to take shape.. The vast majority of Union legislation is adopted by the so-called ordinary legislative procedure, also known by its previous name: codecision procedure.. It is the main one and gives equal weight to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.

When a text comes out of the Commission's presses, a first reading takes place, in which the European Parliament studies it and can introduce amendments.. The Council (that is, the ministers of the 27 in each of their formats, depending on the topic) reviews the text retouched by Parliament. If you accept it without further ado, the procedure ends. If they don't agree, and on important issues they never agree, the action begins.

“Getting a mandate from Parliament is an arduous and complex task, in which you have to reconcile the priorities of MEPs from 27 countries and seven different political groups, each with different national interests and ideological approaches.. And when it is achieved, we are barely halfway through the process. There remains an almost as complex path for the Council, with 27 other governments from 27 countries, with their different national realities and political visions. This is a true inter-institutional jeopardy. All this explains why the negotiations take so long, but it guarantees that when an agreement is reached, its foundations are solid and consensual,” explains former minister José Ignacio Zoido, negotiator of the European People's Party for the Control Regulation within the Pact. of Migration and Asylum.

“Having been on both sides of the negotiating table, I believe it is necessary to listen more to the other side, to have more realistic and less maximalist positions, which allow for more pragmatic agreements to be reached and which can be agreed upon more quickly.”

Every five years the European Parliament renews its seats and it may happen, as in this legislature, that more than 70% of the deputies are rookies. This inevitably has an effect on negotiations, especially in the early stages.. The European Commission and the Council have very experienced officials, with decades of similar procedures behind them. That's why it's not just the format that matters, but the character, the experience, the resources.. “Trilogues did not exist before, they have been a necessity, the key meeting for everything to work. And they depend a lot on who leads from Parliament. The normal thing is that they are the rapporteurs of a file, or rapporteurs, but many times the presidents of each of the Parliament's committees are in charge, especially if there is something important or there is a political weight to add,” explains Adrián Vázquez, head of the Ciudadanos delegation and also president of the Legal Affairs Commission. “I usually let the speaker carry the weight, but if he deviates from the mandate and at that moment no other shadows are present [which is how members of other parties that participate in that same negotiation are known] I intervene to direct or remind him that the mandate is such and cannot be deviated. There are times when some try to put in there, at the last moment, what they couldn't before due to the appropriate procedures, so you have to be very attentive,” he adds.

Codecision system

This codecision system, now commonplace, has been refined over time but critics say it is a staged trick. Governments negotiate with deputies, who are often from the same parties as the ministers. Typically, the Council tries to soften or dilute the Commission's proposals or ambitions, and Parliament pulls in the opposite direction.

“In the trilogues you represent all the visions of Parliament and you try to find a point of balance, which is what is complicated. You never negotiate something that openly goes against the interests of your country and ideology, but there are many margins for negotiation. We have a lot of freedom, but we have to find a balance between rich and poor, north and south, left and right, but it always works out,” highlights socialist Eider Gardiazabal, who has been the representative of the chamber in some of the toughest budget negotiations.. “What we want never comes out completely because there are always budget problems. We have an ambitious European vision, but the ministers of the countries explain to you that their margin is minimal and although they could agree…. All budget disputes, annual ones or financial framework disputes that are for seven years, are always the most frustrating, long and tiresome.. But then a pandemic arrives and 750,000 million euros come out for a fund because everyone understands that we have to act.”

Gardiazabal, a veteran, rules out that Parliament always gives in or that it is destined to lose, since in the majority of cases of bigger files, or a lot of money, the Council presses to lower the ambitions. “I don't see it that way. When looking for positions we also already know where the Council is going to go, it is a game of balance. It is easier for us to be more ambitious than for governments and we are aware, so we counterbalance national desires and wills.. If we weren't there, it's the EU that would lose,” he adds.

Vázquez agrees with this, who before becoming a deputy worked for years in Parliament. “Many times we put in things that we know are impossible, that are unfeasible, because the Council will ask for the opposite and thus we can meet halfway. The idea is to shoot for the moon, aim for the moon, and then they will come with the sales, and trying to scratch when the Council brings out the steamroller is difficult,” he admits.. From his years of experience in Brussels, and in trilogues, he leaves two pieces of advice. “The first is to play with time. When the Council presses because it is in a hurry, we have to play with the agenda and delay. The second is to know that he who resists wins.. In the trilogues do not drink a lot of water. “Drink little and eat lightly, because there are many hours, a lot of stress, and if you have to get up to go to the bathroom and if there is no break, they can sneak it in doubled.”

The early general elections this Saturday in Slovakia will not ensure a stable government, but they leave a particularly dirty campaign, marked by a former prime minister and a former interior minister locked in a fight, arrests of

The bedroom troubles of China's bosses have filled many rosy pages inside and outside the Asian giant. Very high profiles who even aspired to govern the country have fallen due to corruption cases that also included a sexual scandal.. The scourge of the mafias, Bo Xilai, who was President Xi Jinping's most direct rival before he was elected supreme leader, knows this well.

A decade ago, Bo ended up sentenced to life in prison punctuated by accusations of abuse of power and embezzlement of funds. Although what public opinion remembers most are the many adventures that came to light with great actresses and singers of the moment.

In Beijing's political circles, conversations about mistresses hanging around the bigwigs of the Communist Party (CCP), which has always been an exclusive club of married men over 55, are common.. In its statutes, the party makes it clear that its members with families cannot “maintain inappropriate sexual relations with other people.”

In a still very traditional society, public representatives have to be neat both inside and outside the home. Although it is notorious that many circumvent this rule, if the skirt mess jumps into the media arena, the fall from grace is inevitable.

It happened recently to former Foreign Minister Qin Gang, protagonist of last summer's soap opera. Rumors broke out when he suddenly disappeared from the political scene. There was already talk on social media that, during his previous time as ambassador in Washington, Qin had had an extramarital relationship with a Chinese television presenter.. But in Beijing the usual silence prevailed. Today they continue without giving any explanation for the minister's dismissal.

This week, The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, citing sources from both sides, revealed more details about Qin's relationship (he was married and had a son), stating that it had been the real reason for the purge.. The presenter Fu Xiaotian also had a baby last year through surrogacy in the US.

Four months before he disappeared, Qin, who was one of President Xi Jinping's protégés, was promoted to state councilor, a position he still holds, although he has not been seen in public for more than three months.. On the same day of the appointment, Fu published on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, a photograph of his son raising his hand, accompanied by a phrase: “A victorious ending.”. Days later, when it was Qin's birthday, the presenter posted another post in which she wished the “anonymous father” a happy birthday.. The online rumors about the relationship between Qin and Fu took a backseat when, also in the summer, a photograph went viral showing a CCP member and senior executive of a state-owned company walking through Chengdu with a young woman wearing a striking pink dress. They were lovers.

He, Hu Jiyong, was immediately fired from the company and expelled from the party.. She, Dong Sijin, who was one of her employees, also lost her job.. But the news really was that the dress the woman was wearing had had so much strain that it had worn out.