2000-2005

Competition rules preventing state aids and the deflationary policies imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact are hindering development, and they prove disastrous during a recession. It’s also true that violating those rules would provoke a crisis for both the euro and the Union itself. The real issue here is that we must create a true european government with a true european industrial policy.

Having a single currency alongside with a european budgetary policy, irrespective of Member States, implies the creation of a truly federal State made possible by an initially small group of States.

At the Convention, the so-called federalist coalition is still trapped into the community method without challenging the predominant role played by the Member States in the current EU framework. Unlike this method, the federalist one advocates a new State-based decision-making system which is directly connected to our citizens.

After Laeken’s decision of launching a Convention, governments aren’t but trying to buy time. The community method and its intermediate objectives is now outdated. Only the original founding States can relaunch the integration process as they hold a greater degree of european awareness.

As a result of its latest stances, Italy is facing the risk of isolation in Europe as well as undermining the integration proces’s prospects of advancement that can longer be supported by cohesion among the founding States.

Before the growing weakness of the american egemony, in addition to Russia and China’s rise, we must get back to talking about sovereignty and of a European State.

The Enlargement is proving to be a threat to a european cohesion which is growing weaker. To relaunch the political Union, we need a concrete project by the six foundermembers States

The European integration process reached its final stage and there’s just one last step we have to take which consists in the creation of a federal State. Should the six foundermembers countries be unable to take the lead and resolve the stalemate, the enlargment could mark the end of the political Union.

Following the creation of the european currency, the creation of a federal Union is the ultimate step we must take. But the prospect of losing national sovereignty is leaving the government representatives minds in haze, and it’s crippling their will. It would be dangerous to opt for an enlargment just to buy some time.

There can be no solution to the institutional issues that were addressed in Nice in the EU’s current political and institutional framework. On the contrary, they can only be resolved by treating them as elements of a federal constitution in the context of a comprehensive reform of the Union.

The speech given by Fischer on the 12th of May, as well as the one which was given by Chirac on the 27th of June, have brought the crucial issues related to the european unification process to the public opinion’s attention. Such issues can be divided into three chapters: I) The nature of the constituent process and its final stage, II) The general principles of the European Constitution, III) The institutions and the distrubution of competences.

The reason why the two speeches are revolutionary is beacause they clearly enunciate that the Union would inevitably break up, if we choose to enlarge it without a radical institutional reform; moreover, they indicate that this reform can only be implemented in within the framework of a small group of countries, starting from the original foundermembers States.