The crucial step

The more the Ministers of Finance and the Heads of Government of eurozone Countries place their efforts in the stabilization of the common currency, the more it grows evident that the object of a rescue plan isn’t the Euro currency. Rather, the future of the European Union and its governance capacities are at stake. The bottom line is deciding which EU bodies need to be granted sovereignty, who are those responsible for their performance and whether Member States are willing to follow Community discipline. A group of Sovereign States that decide to engage in the development of a central political unit in order to bring about extensive integration can continue to successfully draw advantage from this very integration only when its Members are willing to transfer their sovereignty – in those cases where it is critical to the governance of the corresponding political area – to Community bodies, in order to perform this sovereignty within a Community. This is the lesson of the crisis triggered in the case of Greece, which involves the common currency. Monetary Union ought to be combined with economic Union. However, a monetary union stemming from an economic union based on the solidarity of its community has yet to be realized. A common economic policy for the EU currency does not exist. There exists a monetary government, the European Central Bank, but not an economic government. This is the problem. In order to exit the crisis it is necessary that Member State leaders determine to undertake the decisive step of transferring their economic policy sovereignty to the European Union. Until today they decisively refused. The history of government conferences and the revision treaties of the past twenty years, that were intended to enable the EU to envision its very own future developments, isn’t only the story of important progress along the path of integration, it’s also the story of the refusal to undertake the decisive step to build a European Federal government. It’s hard to admit, since over the past years European citizens have acknowledged globalization as a new important challenge while with the dissolution of the former Soviet Union powers it was finally possible to bring about the reunification of Europe which progressed and expanded to include 27 EU Member States. These are some of the reasons why it was important for Europe to finally have a government. Some of the measures, which characterize the efforts aimed at a reform, tend towards stricter EU budget and finance regulations. This is the right direction. But it won’t be enough if the European Commission, in its capacities as the executive body of the EU, is not granted the responsibilities and the tools enabling it to control and ensure that Member States comply with this approach. Will the governments still have the political will to undertake this path? It’s hard to imagine. Or rather: not yet. Unfortunately in most cases political determination comes about only when there is no alternative – and often too late -, when the worse has already happened and Member States don’t know how to solve the problems with their national tools.