By Emma Bonino
ROME, Jul 24 2015 (IPS)

“A serious political and social crisis will sweep through the euro countries if they do not decide to strengthen the integration of their economies. The euro zone crisis did not begin with the Greek crisis, but was manifested much earlier, when a monetary union was created without economic and fiscal union in the context of a financial sector drugged on debt and speculation.”

Emma Bonino

These words, which are completely relevant today, were written by a group of federalists, including Romano Prodi, Giuliano Amato, Jacques Attali, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and this author, in May 2012.

Those with a federalist vision are not surprised that the crisis in Greece has dragged on for so many years, because they know that a really integrated Europe with a truly central bank would have been able to solve it in a relatively short time and at much lower cost.

In this region of 500 million people, another example of the inability to solve European problems was the recent great challenge of distributing 60,000 refugees among the 28 member countries of the European Union. Leaders spent all night exchanging insults without reaching a solution.

Unless the federalist programme – namely, the gradual conversion of the present European Union into the United States of Europe – is adopted, the region will not really be able to solve crises like those of Greece and migration.

It can be stated that European federalism – which would complete Europe’s unity and integration – is now more necessary than ever because it is the appropriate vehicle for overcoming regional crises and starting a new phase of growth, without which Europe will be left behind and subordinated not only to the United States but also to the major emerging powers.“Unless the federalist programme – namely, the gradual conversion of the present European Union into the United States of Europe – is adopted, the region will not really be able to solve crises like those of Greece and migration”

Furthermore, its serious and growing social problems – such as poverty, inequality and high unemployment especially among young people – will not be solved.

Within the federalist framework there is, at present, only the euro, while all the other institutions or sectoral policies (like defence, foreign policy, and so on) are lacking.

Excluding such large items of public spending as health care and social security, there are however other government functions which, according to the theory of fiscal federalism (the principle of subsidiarity and common sense), should be allocated to a higher level, that of the European central government.

Among them are, in particular: defence and security, diplomacy and foreign policy (including development and humanitarian aid), border control, large research and development projects, and social and regional redistribution.

Defence and foreign policy are perhaps considered the ultimate bastions of state sovereignty and so are still taboo. However, the progressive loss of influence in international affairs among even the most important European countries is increasingly evident.

To take, for instance, the defence sector: as Nick Witney, former chief executive of the European Defence Agency, has noted: “most European armies are still geared towards all-out warfare on the inner-German border rather than keeping the peace in Chad or supporting security and development in Afghanistan.

“This failure to modernise means that much of the 200 billion euros that Europe spends on defence each year is simply wasted,” and “the EU’s individual Member States, even France and Britain, have lost and will never regain the ability to finance all the necessary new capabilities by themselves.”

It should be noted that precisely because the mission of European military forces has changed so radically, it is nowadays much easier, in principle, to create new armed forces from scratch (personnel, armaments, doctrines and all) instead of persisting in the futile attempt to reconvert existing forces to new missions, while at the same time seeking to improve cooperation between them.

Why should it be possible to create a new currency and a new central bank from scratch, and not a new army?

Common defence spending by the 28 European Union countries amounts to 1.55 percent of European GDP. Hence, a hypothetical E.U. defence budget of one percent of GDP appears relatively modest.

However, it translates into nearly 130 billion euros, which would automatically make the E.U. armed forces an effective military organisation, surpassed only by that of the United States, and with resources three to five times greater than those available to powers like Russia, China or Japan.

It would also mean saving an estimated 60 to 70 billion euros, or more than half a percentage point of European GDP, compared with the present situation.

Transferring certain government functions from national to European level should not give rise to a net increase in public spending in the whole of the European Union, and could well lead to a net decrease because of economies of scale.

Taking the example of defence, for the same outlay a single organisation is certainly more efficient than 28 separate ones. Moreover, as demonstrated by experiences with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the Cold War, efforts to coordinate independent military forces always produced disappointing results and parasitic reliance on the wealthier providers of this common good. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Translated by Valerie Dee/Edited by Phil Harris    

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

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Some experts advocate a federal future for the European Union. Rock Cohen/CC-BY-2.0

By Pier Virgilio Dastoli
ROME, Jun 16 2013 (IPS)

Three different models for regional unification have been proposed by the movement for European integration since its inception. One vision is a league of states that preserve national sovereignty while committing themselves to follow specific policies agreed by consensus.

Then there is the functionalist model, where national states delegate common administration of their shared interests to a supranational authority.

Thirdly, the federalist model proposes conserving and respecting the sovereignty of national states for questions of national scope and character, while transferring to a European government sovereignty over matters of Europe-wide scope and character.

Federalist Altiero Spinelli defined European government as having limited but real powers, democratically controlled by a European parliament and operating in conformity with European laws.

In terms of political relations between communities of men and women there is only one possible reply to the question: “How should shared problems, which require shared, complex and permanent solutions, be faced?”

The answer is simple: entrust the function of addressing shared problems to a shared power.

That power might originate from the imposition of the strongest over the rest. This is the imperial, or hegemonic, response. Between 1945 and 1989, Europe lived in a geopolitical context characterised by the U.S. hegemony and Soviet imperialism.

But it can also arise from free consensus among partner countries and citizens for the creation of a shared power, parallel to their own powers, provided with specific procedures for reaching consensus and for the approval of federal policies, and to which limited competencies are transferred.

That is what federalists propose.

Another option would be the recognition of the existence of common problems which, however, would be identified each time the members decide by consensus that they should be addressed with a common response. In this variant, no transfer of power is required.

But when the achievement of a goal demands complex preparation, consensus-building and execution procedures, or when the goal is long-term and demands long-lasting shared action, this option is not rational and the outcome will almost certainly be unsuccessful.

The experience of the financial crisis that has buffeted Europe in the past few years confirms the irrationality of such a response.

The time has come for a comprehensive project that defines the degree of interdependence among the European Union, its citizens and member states (the creation of the United States of Europe) – a political method to create the necessary consensus (a democratic constituent assembly), and a timetable for the plan to take place within a politically feasible timespan.

Carrying out this project would require not only full enforcement of the Treaty of Lisbon, approved by the bloc in 2007, but also updating it with an agenda that extends beyond the May 2014 European elections. This will be a unique opportunity to resume the path toward a European constitution on a federalist basis.

Obviously, it is not enough for a federal organisation to have intrinsic merits. Building it demands permanent support from tremendous vital forces that feel the need for such an organisation and are prepared to act in order to sustain it. It would be a waste of time to build an edifice at a time when circumstances favour its building, if ultimately it cannot be maintained.

The European Union cannot be reduced to an economic and monetary union; it must also include the dimension of citizenship and human rights, social policies, domestic freedom and security, justice and foreign policy including defence.

The constitutional order must include budgetary issues (which items are the responsibility of national states and which of the European Union?), with a radically innovative focus on the concepts of federal budget costs and revenues. Debate should also be raised about the EU’s borders.

A political and legal solution should also be found for the problem of differentiated union or integration that allows states and citizens who want to advance faster than others to do so.

The initiative should come from the European Parliament and involve national legislatures in an inter-parliamentary conference, as proposed by then French president François Mitterrand (1981-1995) just before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The natural goal of the conference is to attribute to the European Parliament the function of a constituent convention, as proposed by Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission, and former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and recommended in a March 2012 manifesto of the European Movement.

It will be the role of political parties and coalitions and civil society organisations to give next year’s election campaign a Europeanist focus.

Strong pressure is expected from populist movements advocating a regression to a Europe divided into separate nations.

All the more reason for innovators to act decisively so that Europeans take a leap forward, toward more democracy and greater solidarity.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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