And yet it moves

At the end of last year, once agreement on the new Treaty of Lisbon had been reached and the so-called “institutional crisis” overcome, politicians and commentators in all countries had maintained that the EU would finally be able to dedicate itself to the real problems of citizens, transforming itself – as if by magic – into the “Europe of results”. In actual fact the Treaty is still in the process of ratification. If everything goes ahead without hitches (the only question mark is represented by the referendum due to be held on the Treaty in June; the other states will proceed by parliamentary means), the new institutional framework of the EU will enter into force next year. In the meantime something seems to be moving in the direction of a “workday” Europe, a Europe able to intercept people’s real needs and expectations and find suitable answers to them. Not everything is proceeding in the right direction, obviously. This is also because some questions are extremely complex, the powers of the EU still limited, and many governments continue to believe in the proverb: “if you want a thing done, do it yourself”. Popular wisdom, which we are all so fond of, does not seem, however, the right road in response to the global challenges – economy, environment, energy, migration, communication… – that require on the contrary a surplus of cooperation between peoples and nations. This is precisely what the process of integration in the European Community proposed a half century ago. Not everything, as I said, is moving in the right direction, and yet Europe is moving. And among the institutions of the 27, the European Parliament seems to have grasped the sense of this “strategy” that comprises greater collaboration and greater concreteness in addressing people’s real needs.Just to give one or two examples, during its plenary session in the first half of April, the EP launched the procedure for a legislative proposal that would require public TV broadcasters to provide subtitles to all programmes, to make them accessible to the deaf or hard of hearing (such as the elderly). It adopted a declaration that asks member states seriously to tackle the problem of the homeless, and to guarantee all Europeans of a roof over their heads by 2015: a huge, but not impossible social operation in wealthy Europe, assuming it has the will to pursue it. During the same session MEPs supported provisions in favour of small and medium businesses and voted on a package of measures aimed at realizing common actions for the prevention and treatment of cancer.A similar willingness to address people’s real problems characterized the session of 21-24 April, during which one of the issues debated was that of the donation of organs for transplants. Various provisions will have to follow this up, all characterized by increased cross-border collaboration, if a normal life is to be restored to the some 70,000 Europeans who are now waiting for a transplant operation that could release them from long illnesses and infinite sufferings. The EP also accepted a report that underlines the valuable role of civil society and religious communities in the fight against drugs, and the need for joint actions in terms of prevention and recovery. A European Union like this, though not exempt from backsliding and dithering in the ethical field, does show it is proceeding along the right road: that of a unity in diversity that is slowly but surely constructed by mutual consent and that especially places the good of its citizens at the centre.