European Letters

It is once again crucial that a vanguard group of countries takes responsibility, if we are to solve the stalemate blocking the EU’s machine. It’s in this sense that we intend to propose a concrete project of a Treaty aimed at launching the Union’s reform process, in the run-up to the European Council in December.

The extraordinary success of the March for Europe, the pro-Europe march organized by the EFM and the UEF, must become a turning point for all the people who deeply care about the the success of the European integration project.

At a time when both action and initiatives are needed, the Council is giving up policy planning and governments are struggling to find impossible national solutions to various crises. This is why it will be important to show, on the 25th of March, that there is still a broa consensus in favour of a federal europe.

The terrorist attacks in Brussels aimed at the heart of Europe when it already seems to have fallen prey of chaos, as a result of its structural vulnerabilities. Yet, proposals concerning what we urgently need to do have already been put on the table, but we can’t implement them because they require a transfer of sovereignty to a truly european federal government.

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.