European Letters

A closer political and economic union of a group of states within the European Union, or within a wider community based on less binding regulations, would allow us to overcome oppositions to Turkey’s integration into the european space.

Some people are starting to reallze that the Union’s pro-European feeling has lost its driving force and that a drastic change of course is necessary, alongside with accepting a certain form of divorce within the Union, to prevent the european unification process from failing.

The governments disunity in relation to the Iraq war, economic stagnation, the return of nationalisms, the difficulties met by the ratification of a treaty that was so pompously called a “constitution”, are all signs indicating that Europe could break-up if we can’t take the road to the federation.

It is in the UK’s interest that Europe won’t be politically unified, as well as making sure that the Union remains a weak free trade area in which british and american politics can more easily prevail.

Governments in Brussels couldn’t even approve a treaty that would only aesthetically change the EU institutions. It is now clear that to give new life to the european integration process we must start with a small group of States, which unfortunately will very unlikely see Italy as one if its members.

1) The importance of Europe and the need for a foreign and defence policy. 2) The Convention. 3) The majority rule. 4) An urgent European state. 5) The federal group. 6) The oppositions. 7) The alternative and a complicated choice. 7) The federal covenant. 8) What’s inside the federal covenant.

Despite the american success in the Iraq War, in addition to the US’s allies uniting again, the only progressive framework for the international stage which would guarantee stability and actual developmente for every region in the planet, cannot but be based on multipolarism and the emergence of a European pole which would be impossible if we don’t launch a Euopean federal State.

Europe is facing a crucial phase in its history requiring rapid and radical decisions, including on sovereignty which cannot be dealt with and solved in the current framework made up by 25 member states, neither can it be solved in any group involving the UK.

At the Brussels Convention we’ll have to choose between two intergovernmental models, this is what’s at stake: the so-called community method on the one hand, a partially disguised one advocated by small Member States, and on the other hand a more explicit model backed by the larger States. A dispute that undermines cohesion among the orignal group of States, the only ones that can bring about Europe’s unification.

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.