‘MERZONI’ is the nickname given to the Merz–Meloni axis and their non-paper on European competitiveness: a text which, under the banner of ‘simplification’, redesigns the architecture of the Union in an intergovernmental and deregulatory sense. The core of the operation is simple: shift power from the European level to national governments, use competitiveness as a filter to block or water down environmental and social standards, particularly to the benefit of large industrial groups and industry in general, and reduce the political role of the Commission and compress that of the European Parliament. This is not a neutral addition to the debate on Draghi and Letta: it is an attempt to take credit for “competitiveness” by emptying it of its content and common policies, even in the green sector and the transition that the two former Italian prime ministers, despite all their ambiguities, attribute to it. And alos, there is no ambition to become more independent. On the contrary: the USA are still the leader of a "western alliance" that is more and more difficult to see.

In Draghi's report, competitiveness does not mean fewer rules but more common action: a stronger European budget, shared instruments to finance the green transition, digitalisation, defence, completion of the capital markets union and a more coherent European regulatory framework. The underlying idea is that, in a world marked by systemic rivalries, no Member State can stand alone: a “true economic union” is needed, with more fiscal and investment powers in Brussels. Letta, in his “more than a market”, reasons from the perspective of the single market: it is no longer enough to coordinate 27 sets of regulations; we need to build or complete direct European legal regimes for strategic projects, start-ups, infrastructure, and common governance capable of avoiding fragmentation and dumping. Both are pushing for a more integrated Europe: fewer vetoes, more common instruments, more European rules and resources that prevail over purely national logic. They also assume that the green transition is not optional: we can discuss the pace, the mix of instruments, social compensation, but the path remains that of the Green Deal as a lever for competitiveness and autonomy, not as a brake.

The approach of Meloni and Merz (by the way, what happened to the German Social Democrats?) reverses the perspective. It uses the same vocabulary – competitiveness, simplification, efficiency – to propose a structure that makes the blocking power of governments structural. The Commission is reduced to the role of technical executor of the priorities set by the Member States, supervised by new political filters. The European Parliament is seen more as a hindrance than as a democratic engine, whose legitimacy is not recognised: less room for initiative, less opportunity to strengthen environmental and social standards, more pressure not to “exaggerate” with regard to the sensitivities of governments and industrial lobbies. Examples that immediately spring to mind and which have particularly infuriated Merz are the EP's first negative vote on the revision (or rather, the blocking) of the environmental reporting directives and the referral to the Court of Justice of the Mercosur agreement. “Competitiveness” thus becomes the sole criterion by which to judge any new rule: if it “weighs” on businesses according to criteria left to the judgement of governments, it must be reduced or postponed. As some commentators have noted, this transforms deregulation into a sort of quasi-“constitutional” principle, a safety valve always in the hands of national executives, and obviously breaks the principle of an autonomous European power space. On the ecological front, it means opening a new fast track for dismantling the Green Deal: environmental standards reinterpreted as “bureaucratic costs”, climate targets transformed into variables that can be negotiated on a case-by-case basis, with the already visible risk of systemic regression.

Ursula von der Leyen's letter to heads of state and government before her retreat to the Belgian castle fits into this pattern. In that letter, the Commission President asks leaders to focus on implementing the economic agenda, recognises the need to “simplify” and reduce gold-plating (i.e. the bureaucracy added by individual states when transposing directives), but introduces a political element that is not new but reaffirmed with new conviction: if the 27 cannot move forward, enhanced cooperation must be used without hesitation, allowing groups of states to move forward on competitiveness, transition and defence. This is, in fact, an opening to a multi-speed Europe, a theme that is not new in Brussels and in any case difficult to implement, given that it requires a unanimous vote to get started.

We shall see. But unanimity and paralysis among the 27 have long prevented any leap forward; however, in the absence of a comprehensive and transparent framework for democratic reform, and if this attempt were to be combined with the proposals of the Merz/Meloni duo, the risk of an “à la carte” Europe, where European rules are optional rather than mandatory, would be just around the corner. In short, if used well, as was partly the case with Schengen, enhanced cooperation can be a tool for organising a group of countries that accept more common rules, more shared budgeting, more integration in key sectors – energy, defence, green industry – and which can then pull the others along. But this has nothing to do with the renationalisation of policies and financial instruments partly proposed by the Commission for the multiannual budget, which would transform the EU into a kind of ATM, or with the systematic “revision” of existing or pending regulations promised by the Commission, which introduces regulatory instability that does not simplify, but rather creates confusion, as some representatives of the industrial world have already noted.

Von der Leyen's letter, read alongside the Draghi and Letta reports, is nevertheless different from the Meloni/Merz Agreement. It does not propose to empty the Commission and Parliament, but rather defends the role of the Commission as a driving force and calls on Parliament to take a constructive approach to regulatory simplification, “without giving up on the objectives”. On this point, I believe that the Commission is wrong to pursue a wave of deregulation that is unlikely to bring any clear benefits even to its own promoters and will instead make it very difficult to achieve the goals of decarbonisation and transformation of the European energy and economic system that everyone says they want to achieve, making us less competitive rather than more so. For Europe, in fact, reducing “dependencies” means above all being autonomous in the field of energy, and therefore focusing on renewables, batteries, efficiency and storage, but also minimising economic inequalities and social and territorial imbalances, which are already making our societies increasingly restless and divided.

It will be very interesting to see whether tomorrow's discussion will be an opportunity to bring these profound differences out into the open or whether the choice will be made to pretend that they do not exist behind the common narrative of competitiveness. It is more than evident, however, that there is a silent guest who remains completely excluded from these dynamics and discussions. And that is the European people, civil society, which has no real voice in the “Merzoni” scheme, nor in Draghi's, and unfortunately not even in Von Der Leyen's. Draghi's “pragmatic federalism” cannot be just a technocratic reform of “competitiveness”: it needs a stronger and more visible democratic and social leg, attentive to the interests of citizens; and ultimately it cannot truly be achieved without a change in political majorities and a reform of the Treaties; it can only work if preceded by strong mobilisation and awareness of the dangers of an increasingly “oligarchic” system, which is less and less transparent and, despite everything, also less efficient because it is fragmented and divided. Today, this goal seems distant, but in reality, I believe that the failure of the intergovernmental and oligarchic illusion to truly address the challenges facing the EU will be one of the aspects that we will have to use to build an alternative today in view of the 2027 elections in Italy and the 2029 elections in Europe. To put it more “dramatically”, the way to thwart these dangerous nationalist plans is to start resuming the constituent initiative, mobilise citizens and businesses, and prepare to win the 2027 and 2029 elections. Those elections must become the political mandate for a choice at national and European level: parliaments determined to build a federal, ecological and democratic community, or the Europe written for us by Meloni/Merz.

Monica Frassoni

Brussels, 11 February 2026