The latest European Summit confirmed that the European unification process is facing a concrete risk of failure. Therefore, a change of course is imperative if we are to find a solution to the priority matters on which the future of europeans depends: the governance of the eurozone, internal security, reforming the treaties.
The consensus that was reached after the Greek crisis showed that the strenous search for agreements between governments feeds mutual distrust, and it de facto provides a breeding ground for anti-system and eurosceptic movements. Italy could play a key role in the framework of the ongoing discussions if it sided with a Minister of the Treasury, and a budget for the eurozone.
The dramatic events in Paris call for a political response that is able to face the challenge to the values of democratic civilizations. Many proposals that have been put on the table make reference to the need for targeted federal fundings for the euro area. We only need to find the will to implement these choices, instead of getting scattered as we look for weak national solutions.
The importance of this legislature shows why the fight which took place during the election was so radicalised: the new Parliament and the governments will have to be able to finalize the transformation process of the monetary union and turn into a real political union, starting with the implementation of fiscal federalism.
With the decisions taken by the December Council regarding the banking and fiscal union and the start of negotiations on contractual agreements, the discussion on the launch of the economic and political union opens up.
The latest statements by the governments of both France and Italy seem to be willing to overcome the accusations to the german government of making sovereignty sharing a condition on which european growth policies will have to be based on, and they’re paving the way for an additional embryonic budget for the eurozone.
To bring about the banking, fiscal, economic, and political union by solving the issue of democratic legitimacy: that’s the road the eurozone governments, followed by the European institutions, have committed to take in order to secure the euro, resolving the sovreign debts crisis, and create a true economic and monetary union.
We’re still not out of the euro crisis yet, but thanks to the decision takens by the eurozone’s governments to immediately launch the budgetary and banking union, the German Parliament’s approval of both the fiscal compact and the ESM, as well as similar commitments by France, Italy, and Spain, things have changed and we now have new opportunities of making Europe.
Governments in Europe are becoming aware of the fact that the lack of effective monetary union governance instruments is the key reason behind the strong and long-lasting speculative attack against the euro, as well as addressing the main problems related to the budgetary and fiscal union, and strengthening the political union among eurozone countries.
The United Kingdom’s self-exclusion from the agreement through which France and Germany intended to start strengthening the monetary union represents a huge political split, which is crucial to make the progress needed by the european process.
Given the uncertainty of the world’s economic, political, and financial situation, the weak likelihood of integration at a euro-mediterranean level, which adds up to the european inability to propose a co-development plan for africans, serious doubts arise as to whether or not the arab springs will be successful.
Europeans still haven’t acknowledged the fact that the euro crisis has not only laid bare the weakness of the Union’s rules, but it has also forced them to decide who will be the european sovreign.
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