Italian Commissioner Gentiloni backs political rival Fitto for key EU job

Outgoing EU economy commissioner and Italian socialist Paolo Gentiloni put party allegiance aside and threw his weight behind political rival Raffaele Fitto in an interview with POLITICO on Tuesday.

The Italian right-winger is in line to become executive vice president of the European Commission — a title usually given to commissioners who oversee several portfolios — but must still win a confirmatory vote to secure the post.

“I would vote for him [Fitto],” in the upcoming vote in the European Parliament, Gentiloni said.

Not that Gentiloni himself will be voting: The message was instead directed at his own Democratic Socialist Party (PD), which still hasn’t made up its mind whether to support Fitto, who hails from PM Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party. The vote will likely take place in November, though no date has been set.

The decision of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to elevate Fitto initially enraged the pan-European Socialists and Democrats grouping due to the reluctance of the Brothers of Italy to reelect von der Leyen as leader of the Commission, and also because of its lingering associations with Italy’s post-fascist past.

But Gentiloni, a PD grandee and former Italian prime minister, urged the party’s 21 lawmakers to look beyond party politics and put the national interest first.

“I think in general Italian MEPs would do good in voting for an Italian commissioner while urging a clear pro-EU commitment from the Italian government,” Gentiloni said while acknowledging their concerns were legitimate.

If confirmed, Fitto will be responsible for €400 billion in funding for poorer regions — known as “cohesion funds” — and will have oversight on various sectors including transport and agriculture. Brussels insiders described him as a pragmatist and one of the more moderate figures in Meloni’s camp.

Common borrowing legacy

Looking back at his stint as economy commissioner, Gentiloni described his time in Brussels as a “roller coaster,” marked by his delivery of a €700 billion post-pandemic cash pot as well as his contributions to the EU’s efforts to prop up Ukraine’s war-battered economy.

Gentiloni credits the joint borrowing — initially aimed at rescuing economies that were severely hit by the economic recession caused by Covid-19 — with boosting growth in Southern European members such as Spain, Portugal and Greece.

“In hindsight, it would have been good if we had kept part of the €800 billion for common [European as opposed to national] projects too,” he said, while acknowledging — in a nod to former Italian PM Mario Draghi’s landmark competitiveness report, unveiled Sept. 9 — that projects of “European scale” could soon justify further common debt.

As outlined in Draghi’s 400-page report, the bloc’s industrial competitiveness rests on being able to catalyze private and public investment for industrial and high-tech projects, some of that ideally by issuing common debt — a historically contentious issue for many member states.

Whatever the flavor of financing, Gentiloni’s view on the report was that it should still be treated selectively. “We need to take the Draghi report à la carte, choosing the most important, urgent and feasible things,” Gentiloni said.

That doesn’t mean avoiding politically thorny questions such as joint debt, however.

According to the 69-year-old, common debt is inevitable if the goals of Draghi’s report, which ranges from producing clean energy to boosting the EU’s defense industry, are to be achieved.

Once raised, he added, funding should flow to the defense sector — especially now that fiscally austere countries in Northern Europe and the Baltics are keen on military spending — as well as to the “European Competitiveness Fund,” an idea floated in July by von der Leyen, albeit with few details.

Not that Gentiloni will have to worry about any of that.

After five years in Brussels, he said, he’s looking forward to catching up on some Italian sunshine and doing “good things in Italy, in Europe and in the world.”