Strengthening the European Union

The speeches delivered on Wednesday October 7 by French President Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande probably in the hemicycle of the European Parliament will not be recorded in history. Nonetheless, the German-French tandem leaves a mark in Strasbourg and in its own way it reiterates that Europe is there, that the European project has not been overcome by events, and Community integration is a necessary condition to respond to global challenges. These are migrations, ISIS, sovereign debt crisis or climate change. The burden of history. Merkel and Hollande reached the seat of the EU Parliament 25 years since the reunification of Germany and 26 years since the fall of the Berline Wall. In November 1989 Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand intervened side by side before the MEPs of the then EEC. It was a different Europe, which has just emerged from the nightmare of the division in blocks, that freed itself of Communist regimes, with its doors open to peoples and States of Eastern Europe, dreaming a bordernless market and a single currency. Today the Old Continent strives to open its borders to desperate refugees fleeing from Africa and from the Middle East and often views the euro currency as a mistake and not as a tool to facilitate economic cohesion and European competitiveness on world markets. “Differentiated integration”. François Hollande, solemn, using highbrow language, reiterated the need for a “strong Europe”, “solidarity-driven”, “responsible” to face the migration problem, the bailout of Greece, the Syrian and the Ukrainian emergency. Not a day goes by – he claimed – without presenting the dues to Europe and every upcoming difficulty we “register the temptation to close ourselves, to find refuge inside ourselves”. But for Hollande Europe “cannot condemn herself to impotence”. That’s why a step forward should be made compared to the mere protection of national sovereignties (stated by a French president this comes as a surprise) to develop common answers. Hollande goes even further: this new Europe, determined and efficient, should proceed, if necessary, with “differentiated” integration. It’s the design of “variable geometries” Europe, for some time invoked by all those who do not renounced a federalist and truly Europeanist design. Angela Merkel on the other hand appears to be more concrete, to the extent of delving to – in a speech not without references to historical events and to the “common values” – on the digital agenda, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the energy question. For the chancellor refugees represent the “a burden of proof for united Europe”, which requires “joint action” in a spirit of solidarity. Doubts and eluded issues. The two speakers, who received warm applauses by a large part of the assembly hall and by brash criticism by the eurosceptic group, conveyed converging views on migrations (rewriting the Dublin agreement; safeguarding Schengen), foreign policy (“Europe must speak with one voice”), single currency, while the respective positions on Syria and Lebanon were not clear: yes or no to armed intervention? On the other hand, both the French head of State and the leader of the German government were exhaustive on two aspects: social policies (what ever happened to widespread unemployment and to the many families who can’t make ends meet?) and the citizens’ role within the European project. A message that looks ahead. In a EU that seeks leadership and a new vocation, the double Merkel-Hollande is not fully convincing, while it confirms, in the detractors, the view of a supposed diarchy at the lead of the “common home”. At the same time, the chancellor and the president have the merit of having put on the table pressing issues whereby the EU needs to be reconsidered, reshaped, in order to continue being – or return to be – a major player on the global scenario. There are no longer Kohl and Mitterrand, and Schuman, De Gasperi and Adenauer are consigned to history. But the future is not built with nostalgia, but by drawing from the example of the past in order to identify new avenues. Perhaps Hollande and Merkel intend to transmit this message. Minimal but essential.