Italy, Germany, France eye beefed-up EU defense

Associated Press

ABOARD THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER GARIBALDI

The leaders of Italy, France and Germany vowed Monday to boost joint European security efforts in the wake of Islamic extremist attacks as they made a symbolic bid to relaunch the European Union after Britain’s vote to leave.

From the deck of the Italian aircraft carrier Garibaldi, which is spearheading the EU’s migrant rescue and anti-smuggling effort, Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande also promised new economic prospects to young people – albeit without any specific proposals or details.

The three leaders traveled to the sun-soaked island of Ventotene to pay tribute to one of the founding fathers of European unity, Altiero Spinelli, and show common cause going into a bigger EU-wide summit next month in Slovakia.

Spinelli, along with another intellectual confined to Ventotene in the 1940s by Italy’s fascist rulers, co-wrote the “Ventotene Manifesto” calling for a federation of European states to counter the nationalism that had led Europe to war. The document is considered the inspiration for European federalism.

Renzi invited his French and German counterparts to the island off Naples to remind Europe of its founding ideals as the EU forges ahead amid a spate of challenges, from slow economic growth to extremist violence, after Britain’s vote to leave the bloc.