What after the crisis?

Also in the New Year we are called to face the risks and the consequences of the European financial crisis caused by the excessive indebtedness of some Member States. However, we have reasons to hope that in the coming months there will be growing increasing signs that hovering dangers shall be overome. Now that necessary reforms – neglected for much too long – have been reintroduced also in Italy, a major debtor country that since past summer was viewed as a great risk owing to its primary role in Eurozone countries, along with rigorous measures aimed at containing expenses, a gradual recovery of confidence in governments’ capability of addressing their commitments linked to monetary Union membership is being registered. This will help consolidate the euro currency thus revitalising the economy and creating growth. What has been decided at European level to create a fiscal union aimed at ensuring the budgetary discipline of member States and economic cohesion – an objective due to be met in the coming months -, must lead to the stabilization of the entire system by means of Member States’ more solid financial policy. In order to be stable and capable of acting in the long run, not only in economic and financial realms, the European Union needs to be clear about its finalities. In other words, once the acute phase of the crisis will have been overcome, governments and parliaments will have to face European Union accomplishment with determination. Since the onset, this goal represented the deepest motivation, providing the historical dimension of the European unification process. Apart from the finalities, what Chancellor Helmut Kohl told the Bundestag on November 19 1991 is true still today: “Political union is the indispensable counterpart to economic and monetary union. Recent history, and not just that of Germany, teaches us that the idea of sustaining an economic and monetary union over time without political union is a fallacy”. The crisis that has afflicted us for the past two years is a dramatic confirmation of his words. What is the meaning of “political union’? In its present form the European Union is already political. Its institutions (Parliament, Council of Heads of Government and State, Council of Ministers, Commission) are political. They take political decisions in order to have political effects. Therefore, when we speak of the prospective of the political union or of the evolution of the present structure into a political Union we are referring to a progress at quality level. It is a question of overcoming the present state, based on an international agreement with a federal constitution. Namely, at transforming the relations between member States, still substantially geared towards the diplomatic methods of cooperation between States, into relations based on democratic procedures with ever more evident features of domestic politics. In the past, the concepts “United States of Europe”, and “European Federal States” were frequently employed to describe integration process finalities. Over the decades these concepts grew out of fashion, partly because the objective has been missed and partly because the very objective has changed. But in last analysis, the concept – also because “United States” brings to mind the American model – was rejected for the European process, while the idea is that of a “Federal State” refers to a State which the future European Federation will never become, since it opposes the motivations underlying its creation and development, drawing from previously established national States, some of which with long-dated traditions. Inasmuch as it is a reality and a process, the European Union is a unique phenomenon, unprecedented in history. There ensues that also as a political union it will differ from previous State communities. Its government system will need to be based on the federal and democratic organization that is already present within its current structure. In it, tasks and responsibilities are ascribed at different levels (territorial communities, regions, States, Union) according to the principle of subsidiarity. The decisive aspect of its feature as a political Union will be its responsibility in political sectors (notably foreign relations, security and defence, foreign economy and monetary policy), which cannot be appropriately administered by member states owing to the supranational dimension of these areas. Such responsibility will thus be given to the Union’s central administration. The European Constitution will have to establish ways to accomplish the institutional framework of the political Union, determining the single procedures for its performance. After the crisis, it is hoped that those responsible at all levels will be more aware of the fact the resumption of the negotiations for the Constitution cannot undergo further delays. The fact that the first attempt to give to the European Union a Constitution of this kind failed a few years ago with national referendums held in two member countries, must not discourage further attempts at doing what needs to be done. All considered, after the crisis, Europeans will have had yet another experience and will thus be more capable than before.