ITALY – EUROPEAN UNION

The European Monetary Union is in fact a union of sovereign states, closer to the concept of confederation than to that of federation. In this sense, a series of regulations were designed to avoid economic and financial policies that could be too different from one another.

It is the European Commission that supervises and the final objective is the elimination of the deficit of the member countries. This control became more rigorous and burdensome with the introduction of the Fiscal Compact which, moreover, obliged the EU countries to include an article in the respective Constitutional Charters with the obligatory objective of a balanced budget. This is what has triggered quite a few controversies as it is considered by many to be a rule that is not pertinent to the Constitution of a single State.

The Fiscal Compact obliges governments to tight budgetary policies that actually hamper development, not least because it is the practice that states finance their own growth with the deficit. This is because through the deficit they can create development, finance public works, social aid and businesses, produce greater circulation of money. The Italian government has instead planned a plan with a deficit of 2.4% of GDP for 3 years, this goes against the regulations established in the European Union and also against the interests of many financial groups. In reality, this type of flexibility has already been allowed to other Eurozone countries, in the case of Italy has instead triggered a series of controversies even between the national government and the European Union.

The pressures exerted in these days both from Brussels and the markets have been numerous, a part surely derives from a certain fear of the investors compared to the Italian situation but a good part derives from the unwillingness to accept the factual failure of the economic and monetary policies underway by the EU and the fear of the current European ruling class losing its power in both decision-making and financial terms. What this will be defined in the elections next spring.

It is the opinion of many that the political role, understood at global level, the European Union has already lost it with the opposition to Putin’s Russia that in fact has become the third protagonist, together with the United States and China, in decision-making planetary. With that choice, brought forward with determination both by Germany and the United States at the time of the Obama Administration and Foreign Undersecretary Hillary Clinton, and to which the whole EU, including Italy, (Renzi government) has been queued, the Europe, rather than advancing in its expectations of world leadership, has returned to (almost) province. Politically a big mistake.

On the Italian maneuver is played in practice on the last table remained that is how much this European ruling class can continue to play a role in which it has proved inadequate in foreign policy, admitted it has never had one, and rather narrow views and not very elastic on the economic policies of the Member States. At the moment, and this is history, it has not been able to develop a real integration among the member countries, favoring an excessive rigidity on the budget parameters, compared to weaving the ranks of the delicate relations of European cohesion.

The too many constraints, the rigid rules, the MEF, the Fiscal Compact, have ensured a certain stability but have prevented the realization or at least a draft of a unitary state. Europe, as it was born from the minds of its Founding Fathers, Altiero Spinelli, Konrad Adenauer, Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet … was and remains a beautiful project but the evolution of this dream has sunk into an economic warfare between states that instead of confederating each other for the good of each other, they did so according to national interests and in particular one of them, which tried to create an EU in its image and likeness. It was not wrong to try to export the German model to much of the Union, but the ways and means were wrong. This was the root cause of current problems. Perhaps not the only but absolutely crucial.

Putting himself today in opposition to the Italian government, shows a considerable dose of myopia, also due to the repercussions that a possible crisis / rupture with Italy would have on the entire state of the Union. Contrasting definitely dictated by economic interests, but completely unsuitable to win this challenge. The new sovereignisms clearly indicate the tiredness towards this type of system and they only apparently go in the opposite direction to the unitary dream. They are a sign and a request for profound change, not mere nationalisms. Who does not understand this would do well to accept the historical data and step aside. For the good of Europe itself. The real one.