Success is the method

Achievements in the European unification process entail the agreement and determination of Germany and France. This is notably confirmed by fundamental experiences in the history of integration, and that’s why there are high expectations that the French and German governments will take the initiative, especially given the stagnating European politics. Nonetheless, each time a French-German initiative looms on the horizon, the two leading Countries are accused of wanting to set up a directorate that will submit the European Union to their personal interests, regardless of other partners. In fact, that was the reaction when Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy co-presented a proposal for “a competitiveness pact” to the European Council of the Heads of Government and State. Following the turbulences involving the common currency, caused by the indebtedness of certain Member States, the “pact” is aimed at stepping up the economic force of eurozone States, granting renewed stability. The proposal contains various elements requiring considerable amendments to Member States’ Constitutions and national legislations, notably, banning indebtedness, increasing retirement age, eliminating automatic income adjustment mechanisms, enforcing banking control regulations, implementing tax harmonization measures along with investments in infrastructures, research and education. The compendious program met with resistance, and not only for procedural reasons, since measures of this kind are not easily implemented. The Heads of Government or State will meet March 11 to decide if and when they should address the new French-German challenge. Merkel’s proposal envisages an “economic government” explicitly requested by several Member States some time ago, but which up to now the German government had rejected. We should therefore rejoice about the fact that in the meantime an orientation that deems necessary to implement a common economic policy to integrate and ensure the common currency has prevailed. But there’s a problem: the project of the German Chancery (and of the French President) provides for economic governance coordinated by eurozone heads of Government or State, namely, it fails to comply with the procedures provided for by the Treaty and by Community institutions. The European Parliament’s reaction to the proposal was negative. Indeed, Angela Merkel is skidding on slippery roads that risk becoming a sort of inter-government, which fails to ensure that the established goal will be reached and even jeopardizes EU cohesion. Also this is a fundamental experience of European integration. Indeed, it will be a determining factor for European integration, and the success of the French and German proposals is the implementation of the “Community method” as described in the Treaty of Rome and confirmed in the Lisbon Treaty, used to develop and coordinate Community policies. It stems from the interaction of institutions, ensuring that all interests are taken into due account, proposing the best possible solution in the higher interest of all stakeholders. In the framework of such cooperation, the European Commission, that operates independently of national governments and which responds to the common good, has the task of developing proposals on the basis of the Community interests it has identified. In doing so, it could certainly avail itself also of Member States’ proposals and initiatives. Such proposals are simultaneously presented to two legislative organs for consultation and decision: at the European parliament, which voices the interests of all citizens, and to the Council of Ministers of the European Union, that voices the interests of Member States. Thus legislation is conceived: when the Council of Ministers and Parliament reach an agreement in the evaluation of the Commission’s proposals, which in the procedural process are subject to amendments on the basis of suggestions by ministers and MEPs. In order to be successful also in the future, the European Union is called to implement actions in those sectors where the intergovernmental method was followed delivering poor results. This approach is applicable to foreign policy, and to economic policies in particular, especially if we consider that in this case there is a grounded, logical relationship with fully integrated monetary policy, and that for this reason it is necessary to act as a Community. Furthermore, there are no alternatives to the Community’s progressing in the direction of a democratic political union, set up as an institution and established as a federation, exploiting every occasion to draw close to this goal.