The Merz-Meloni Non-Paper: How the New Germany-Italy Axis Could Destroy Europe

As EU leaders are set to discuss German Chancellor Merz and Italian Prime Minister Meloni’s non-paper at their “informal” retreat in Belgium on February 12, the EU stands at a crossroads, buffeted by heavy headwinds blowing from Trump’s pro-fossil fuels America and China’s “trade shock.” The non-paper is the fruit of a new alliance between Germany and Italy, finalized on January 23 with the signing of a protocol between the two countries in Rome. 

A historic watershed, the protocol signals the end of the Franco-German “power couple” with Merkel and Macron who had led the EU, replacing it with an Italo-German combo. Merz and Meloni share a definition of themselves as “Atlanticists” who have Trump’s ear, meaning they are essentially wedded to a pro-American position. As their non-paper clearly reveals, they are in fact right-wing, pro-business, and anti-European politicians.

To respond to the geopolitical challenges facing Europe, the non-paper, as reported in the press, calls for an “ambitious ease of regulatory burden.” Significantly, and despite quoting an International Monetary Fund study that shows how EU internal barriers continue to hamper growth even 70 years after signing the Treaty of Rome (they amount to some 44% for trade in goods and 110% for services trade), the non-paper doesn’t offer solutions.

To illustrate: Apart from internal barriers, one of the most pressing problems facing EU industry is the high cost of energy: it has to be imported from distant providers, like the US and Qatar; even Russia, despite years of sanctions, still accounts for some 15 percent of natural gas. So calling for an additional push in alternative energy sources would have made sense, further shoring up EU energy independence and competitiveness. 

Instead of constructive proposals, the non-paper advocates for systematic deregulation in all sectors, with a wide range of measures proposed. based on “fast-track approval procedures, routine repeals of outdated laws and stricter scrutiny of new rules, with regular reports to EU leaders on progress.”

The problem with this approach is that it only provides short-term relief to businesses’ bottom line rather than solving the basic issues that make European industry uncompetitive. 

True, when Merz and Meloni “advocate deeper integration in services, energy, capital markets and digital industries, a pan-European stock exchange, and revised merger rules to help companies compete globally,” this makes sense. Likewise, one can agree with Merz and Meloni’s call for “the EU to speed up free trade talks with partners including Australia, India, the United Arab Emirates, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations”  and to stand “ready to use defensive trade tools if necessary.” Trump is thus duly warned.

But overall, the non-paper’s systematic push against Green New Deal sustainability objectives is deeply concerning: privileging business profits over sustainability is a short-term view that will only accelerate environmental destruction over the next few years – at least until 2029, assuming von der Leyen’s Omnibus package is not further extended. 

Deregulation policies, as proposed by Merz and Meloni, follow the Trumpian model and are set to cause broad economic damage as climate change relentlessly goes on. Inevitably, as time goes by without any serious sustainability measures in place, it will become increasingly costlier and harder to reverse negative climate impacts. All European citizens will be hurt, businesses included. 

Merz and Meloni, of course, hope to push through their deregulation policies by controlling the Council; after all, together they constitute a juggernaut of two of the largest European economies. Their non-paper proposes a game plan that amounts to a constitutional coup changing the way the EU functions: the plan is to give veto power to their economy ministers in the Council, shutting up environment ministers, and weaponizing the EU Commission’s Regulatory Scrutiny Board to extend its jurisdiction over both the EU Commission and the European Parliament.

The coup: How the Merz-Meloni game plan works to control EU institutions

The non-paper uses opaque, technocratic language and reads like an executive summary rather than giving readers factual evidence for the findings and explanations for the proposed measures. The average European citizen could be excused for missing the radical nature of its content. 

Below is a deconstruction of the four most destabilizing proposals, that taken together, are designed to stop all efforts to make the economy sustainable.

• “Omnibus for permitting”: how introducing tacit approval changes everything

Tucked away in the middle of a paragraph under the first main bullet point titled “Eliminate regulatory barriers that hamper growth”, it is described as “a targeted, cross-sectoral initiative” aiming “at fundamentally accelerating administrative procedures in all sectors.” Here is the key sentence: 

Companies and citizens should be entitled to get an administrative permitting decision within a short period of time. Otherwise, the matter shall be deemed approved. This needs to be the new standard for Europe.” (emphasis added)

This seemingly technical detail is in fact a radical inversion of European administrative law. In most EU member states (such as under Germany’s VwVfG), administrative silence traditionally signals a delay or a tacit rejection to protect the public interest. Merz and Meloni are demanding a shift to “tacit approval” (or Genehmigungsfiktion).

This has deep implications: (1) by leaving “short period of time” undefined, they open the door to arbitrary deadlines (e.g., one month) that could overwhelm understaffed local authoritie; (2) if a local office is too slow to process a permit due to, say, a lack of staff, the permit would be granted automatically, prioritizing speed over safety: this punishes the public for the state’s inefficiency; (3) it implies the EU Commission would override national administrative codes, taking away power from local ajuthorities to review and approve any large, big business projects that impact the local citizenry and landscape: 

This reverses the standard administrative law in many EU countries, where silence usually means the application is tacitly rejected. A radical request, it flies straight against the subsidiarity principle that has guided the process of EU integration up to now.

Let’s note in passing that the EU Commission last week took a step in that direction. Ursula von der Leyen announced the launch of a 48-hour online digital registration process open to all European companies wishing to operate anywhere within the EU. A fast, simplified and unified legal procedure, it is meant to displace the maze of complex national and local rules and it’s likely to prove a lifeline for startups and SMEs with European ambitions. 

Moreover, as von der Leyen noted, this measure falls within the framework of the EU-INC proposal von der Leyen had made at Davos and of the “28th regime” originally proposed by former Italian Prime Minister Enrico in his Report on European competitiveness and supported by the European Parliament. Whether the “28th regime” – the idea of setting pan-European laws that would sit above national and local laws – will actually work to harmonize local laws (harmonization is the really obstacle here), is still open to question.

But Merz and Meloni are not concerned with harmonization and want more than a digital measure that pleases startups. Tellingly, in their protocol agreement, they openly come out in support of innovation within large industries, not startups:

“We share the need to further invest in highly developed, innovative, and internationally integrated industries, which form the core of our deeply interconnected economies. We support a competitive transition to a decarbonized economy, respecting the principle of technological neutrality with regard to national choices and on the basis of sustainability and socio-economic benefits.” (bolding added)

They want the freedom to bring down all regulations that hinder big industry; Merz, in requesting the repeal of the 2035 Ban on Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) last December in a letter to von der Leyen invoking the “principle of technological neutrality” underpinning “national choices”, thus clearly signalling on whose side he is; as to Meloni, industry giants have her ear, as for example ENI. 

• “The principle of discontinuity”: a weapon to eliminate unwanted EU initiatives

The sentence in the non-paper that provides the logic underpinning the so called “principle of discontinuity” is the following: 

We urgently need to implement a strict principle of discontinuity. Numerous COM initiatives that no longer fit current political objectives are however lingering around in legislative procedures. These zombie initiatives must come off the table. 

Again, that sounds reasonable until one realizes what is actually intended: the eliminations of a number of important EU Commission (COM) initiatives that are hardly “zombie,” notably:

• The REACH Revision (Chemicals Strategy): This is the number one target for the German chemical industry (BASF/Bayer) that objects to the proposed overhaul of chemical safety rules, and as a result, repeatedly delaying it (most recently in late 2025 due to a negative impact assessment); unsurprisingly, Merz wants it dead.
• The Energy Taxation Directive (ETD): Stuck in the Council for years, it would end tax exemptions for aviation fuel (kerosene) and maritime shipping. Both German airlines (Lufthansa) and Italian shipping interests want this removed permanently.
• The “Caged Farming” Ban (Animal Welfare): A remnant of the “End the Cage Age” initiative. It has been in limbo due to farmer protests. Meloni, protecting Italian agriculture, wants to ensure this “zombie” never rises again.
• The Nutri-Score / Food Labeling Harmonization: Italy has battled against this for years to defend its food exports from “bad” health grades, in particular Parmesan and Prosciutto. Declaring it a “zombie” allows Meloni to stop the Commission from issuing a devastating mandatory EU-wide food label.

By calling them “zombies,” Merz and Meloni shelve these laws as “bureaucratic corpses.” A brilliant rhetorical trick that swipes away everything the right-wing parties opposes.

• Emergency “break” (or brake): the core of the coup

An apparently anodyne phrase, this calls for a fundamental change in how the Council works, making economy ministers the new EU gatekeepers, leaving environmental ministers without any say in the matter. 

The request appears within paragraph 9, which starts with the following observation: “Often bureaucratic burden is being created during the legislative process in either the Council or the European Parliament.” Here is the full sentence:

Therefore, we propose an emergency break with the possibility to intervene if legislative activities of a Council formation raise serious concerns regarding additional administrative burden both on enterprises and on national authorities and when the impact on the EU economy, primarily on SMEs and SMCs, is not clearly assessed.

To see where Merz and Meloni are going with this, it helps to know how the Council functions. Currently, the Environment Council (ENV) is sovereign in its own domain, and it meets four times a year. The economy minister cannot walk into the room and stop a vote. To implement this “emergency break” legally, the General Affairs Council would have to amend the voting rules to grant the Competitiveness Council (COMPET) the “prerogative” to review the work of other Councils.

When Merz and Meloni say, “We propose an emergency break,” they really mean, “We want the power to stop the environment ministers from passing laws we don’t like.” Because, up to now, it’s the environment ministers who have had the final say on environmental matters, including, naturally, the implementation of Green Deal measures.

All this boils down to an attempt to control the Council. That’s why they propose to change the way the Council functions. Their game plan is to elevate the Competitiveness Council (COMPET) to a “gatekeeper” role,  giving veto power to the economy ministers. This effectively institutionalizes a new principle within the Council where “speed”- i.e. business permits – always trumps sustainability.

One last point: the proposal doesn’t appear out of the blue: It was a key recommendation of former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s Report on the future of the Single Marker (April 2024), which the Merz-Meloni non-paper is effectively trying to put into practice. 

• Systematic monitoring and assessment of amendments: How it would stop the legislative work of European institutions

The sentence where this proposal comes up is especially complex, note the ending about “subsidiarity, proportionality, and attribution”:

Often bureaucratic burden is being created during the legislative process in either the Council or the European Parliament. We therefore call for systematic monitoring and assessment of amendments proposed by the co-legislators in the legislative process to assess whether the proposed changes are associated with additional burdens and/or infringe the principles of subsidiarity, proportionality, and attribution.

The real aim here is to give control back to member states, nullifying the EU regulatory guidance and oversight. 

Despite the language abous monitoring and assessment, Merz and Meloni are not proposing a new heavy structure like a M&E agency whose assessments would require extensive expertise, time and money. They are calling for a radical expansion of the powers of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB), an existing body within the EU Commission, and weaponizing it with oversight over the Parliament and Council. 

This would allow anti-European governments like Ms. Meloni’s to challenge a European law before it is even passed by claiming, “Your amendment violates subsidiarity because it regulates something Italy should regulate itself.”

Currently, the RSB is an independent small group of high-level officials and external experts inside the Commission that rates the quality of impact assessments for new Commission proposals. The Merz-Meloni proposal would give the RSB the power to issue “negative opinions” on amendments proposed by MEPs or Ministers.

This, in effect, is a legislative brake under the guise of a quality check

Suppose the Parliament wants to add a stricter safety rule to a law. Currently, they just vote on it. Under this proposal, someone could cry “Foul! I demand a systematic assessment.” This halts the legislative process. The amendment is sent to the “experts” to assess its impact. This takes at least 3-6 months. By the time the assessment comes back, the political momentum is dead, or the legislative term is over.

A word about the mention of checking for infringement of “subsidiarity, proportionality, and attribution”: this suggests that National Parliaments or a body like the European Court of Auditors could get involved. In that case, a national governments (like Meloni’s) has a formal mechanism to challenge a law before it is even passed, by claiming, “Your amendment violates subsidiarity because it regulates something Italy should regulate itself.“

It is a way to tell members of the European Parliament: “You cannot just vote for things anymore. If you want to change the law, you must produce a 50-page economic impact study first.” 

This is a proposal to effectively strip power from the Parliament (which rarely has the staff to do these studies) and hand it to technocrats and industry lobbyists who are well-funded by the right and therefore have no difficulty in producing impact studies at the drop of a hat.

What next: Will EU leaders follow Merz-Meloni game plan?

In short, the Merz-Meloni “Action Plan” reverses 30 years of EU policy and proposes institutional changes in the Council that amount to a veritable coup, hollowing out the European Green Deal, reducing the EU Commission’s regulatory efforts to nil, and sidelining the EU Parliament.

It’s too early to tell how all this will play out politically. Stay turned for the fallout, as Green parties at the national level and in the EU Parliament get ready for a fight to the death.

Also there are some new winds blowing from the left, as shown by the results of this week’s elections in Portugal, where center-left Antonio José Seguro soundly beat his far-right rival by 66.7% vs. 33.3%. 

One last point: both Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi will be joining the EU leaders’ retreat, and it will be interesting to hear what they have to say, given that the Merz-Meloni non-paper takes their views much further than they probably ever intended.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: A Friedrich Merz Proposing the Architectural blueprint of European institutions illustrating the Merz-Meloni non-paper strategy for EU deregulation. Cover Photo Credit: 2026 World Economic Forum/Jakob Polacsek