The Heads of State and government of the 27 members of the European Union, together with the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, parted ways outside the Justus Lipsius Building on the evening of 19 March, agreeing to meet on 23 and 24 April in the northern part of Nicosia for the fourth summit of 2026, following those of 22 January, 12 and 13 February, and that of 19 March.
From one summit to the next, it is unclear whether the leaders around the long oval table will be the same, as there are many national elections with uncertain outcomes, and between one summit and some will stay at home, as happened in the Netherlands between February and March, and as might happen if Viktor Orbán is defeated on 12 April and his former party colleague Peter Magyar takes office within ten days; others could stay at home between now and the end of 2026 following elections in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Latvia, Slovenia and Sweden.
A deep slumber has once again overtaken Heads of State and government when they have had to address the international issues and wars that are shaking the world from the Middle East to Ukraine, not to mention the forgotten conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa where clashes are fuelled by weapons sold to the warring parties, including by European countries that have never wished to adopt common rules for the control and gradual reduction of the sale of all types of lethal munitions, as demonstrated by the annual data from authoritative research institutes.
The divisions amongst the Heads of State and government have once again blocked the agreement on a loan of over ninety billion to Ukraine, once again urged by President Zelensky, who has been a regular guest at European Council meetings for four years and who left the meeting empty-handed even regarding his country’s prospects of joining the European Union, whilst confirming, however, that the Ukrainian armed forces are becoming increasingly powerful because they are able to supply high-tech defence equipment in the hellish chaos of the Middle East.
Nothing has been said or proposed regarding a European peace initiative four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nor has any concrete proposal – beyond the platitudes contained in the verbs “invites”, “deplores”, “condemns”, denounces” – without these being followed by sanctions with a deterrent effect – has been conceived or discussed regarding the tragic situation in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, where no one speaks any longer of Donald Trump’s grotesque charade of the Board of Peace, in the face of which the European Union, with its divisions, has reached the height of shame.
Following the reckless attack on Iran on 28 February, which Netanyahu demanded of Trump in defiance of international law and the unquestionable illegitimacy of the military responses by the Ayatollahs and the Pasdaran defending an indefensible regime, the European Council has offered no reflection on the unstoppable escalation and the collateral economic consequences that could affect sensitive sectors such as the environment and agriculture and lead to a dramatic increase in global hunger.
We have learnt that Egypt, Oman and the United Kingdom are reportedly working to try to reopen the dialogue that had begun between the United States and Iran prior to the 28 February attack, that there are Iranian proposals and US counter-proposals, and that the prolongation of the conflict would benefit Netanyahu ahead of the general election in October but would not benefit Trump ahead of the mid-term elections in November, thus demonstrating that peace is not a priority and that the interests of sovereignist imperialisms prevail in the world.
No signal, however, has come from the Justus Lipsius building, where the European Council meets in Brussels, regarding a similar initiative by the European Union, apart from the tentative steps taken by Kaja Kallas and the commendable statement by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola that “our solution was not a military one”.
This is as far as the slumber of European leaders has gone; in their now monthly meetings, they are incapable of taking action to ensure that the European Union can play a role as a force for peace in the world.
The European Council, on the other hand, has long been preoccupied with competitiveness and the market – or rather, to be more precise, with the market and not with competitiveness – because the report presented by Mario Draghi in autumn 2024 and updated a year later seems to have vanished from the European Council’s agenda, which appears to have decided to prioritise the market-related issues included in Enrico Letta’s report.
If we were to follow the plan adopted at the 19 March summit for 2026, with a logic that appears closer to that of a board of directors than to a political governing body, we would find that there are no fewer than eighteen measures requested of the European Commission or on which a decision is sought from the European co-legislators, based on proposals that are partly already on the table before the Parliament and the Council.
This is a tight schedule that would require a reorganisation of the European Commission’s agenda and a reorganisation of legislative work (Coreper and Council working groups, parliamentary committees and plenary sessions), partially amending the timetable adopted by mutual agreement between Parliament, the Council and the Commission in December, without taking into account the difficult negotiations currently underway between the Council and Parliament, starting with the multiannual financial framework and the fund regulations.
At the top of the list of priorities, and drawing inspiration from the report commissioned by the European Council from Enrico Letta, is the ‘One Europe, One Market’ agenda which, according to the Heads of State or Government, should be ‘implemented’ by the end of 2026 (or, as the conclusions of 19 March add cautiously, “by the end of 2027” – a significant time lag).
Next comes the removal of barriers to the four freedoms of movement of goods, services, capital and people – discussed since the Single European Act of 1987 – based on the strategy presented by the Commission in March 2025, on which the European Council optimistically hopes to see “concrete and tangible progress” by March 2027.
The European Council also calls for six priority measures on the 28th regime by the end of 2026, on an electronic declaration system by June 2026, the consolidation of the free movement of workers by autumn 2026, the implementation of the one-off principle for businesses by the end of 2026, consumer protection by 2026, and the free movement of goods by the end of 2026.
The European Council reiterates its urgent call on the Council and the Parliament to reach an agreement by the end of 2026 on all omnibus packages and indeed calls on the Commission to present new packages, giving priority to regulations over directives and limiting the use of delegated acts.
In addition to market-related issues, the European Council has added those concerning energy in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East, the review of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) by July 2026 at the latest, an agreement on infrastructure networks by 2026 and the promotion of industrial renewal with a map of dependencies in strategic sectors by the end of 2026 at the latest, the European preference to be adopted by the end of 2026, a package on technological sovereignty, an agreement by the end of 2026 on securitisation and the digital euro, and the presentation of proposals by summer 2026 on competitiveness in the banking sector to make – finally! – progress towards the completion of the Banking Union.
We will publish on our website a timetable for the plan adopted by the European Council to monitor its implementation, paying particular attention to two issues that are essential to us but are absent from the European Council’s guidelines: the environmental and social sustainability of European legislation, and the need for substantial European public and private investment, which were at the heart of the Draghi report, now forgotten by the heads of state and government.
Rome, 25 March 2026
Pier Virgilio Dastoli