Le groupe Spinelli a eu l'excellente idée de réunir un Shadow European Council en même temps que se tenait le Sommet Européen jeudi dernier. Le résultat est malheureusement un peu décevant. Voici le commentaire que j'ai laissé sur leur site:
Thank you very much for this initiative since indeed we need a true debate on Europe, thank you for contributing to it. However I have to say that I am quiet disappointed by your paper, which I find not very realistic and therefore not so much useful... I was expecting much more from your excellent initiative to hold a Shadow European Council.
Let's be clear, I am a true federalist, and even a pan European one. This is the goal at a very long term, but the best way to reach it is to very pragmatically build the European House, stone after stone, and not to give the impression that we can have the roof before having the walls. You mix your personal federal views for the entire European Union with the current necessity to have a federal management of the Eurozone. This might be very counterproductive and can let us waste a lot of time, energy and lose a lot of support. Do not give the impression that federalism is an ideological dream, federalism should comes from the necessity, as the true solution provider where it is needed and when it is needed. This is also very much the core of the very important principle of subsidiarity.
In my view this would be a big mistake to give to the Commission the responsibility of managing the Eurozone. This is not its sphere of competence and responsibility. The realities at stake are way too strategic to let them in the hands of people whose duty is to find compromise with countries not involved in the Euro venture.
Europe needs clarity and simplification. This is the prerequisite for efficiency, democratic control and at the end legitimacy. Then let us urgently build the institutions that the Eurozone needs and deserves.
We need an executive body for the Eurozone as rightly (but a bit shortly) suggested by Valery Giscard d'Estaing on June 23 in Le Monde. We need also a legislative body, and here it is easier, we can just use the European Parliament and European Council reduced to the representatives of the members of the Eurozone. The President of the Eurozone Executive body has to be designated by the European Parliament of the Eurozone; he shall alone designate his/her team which will be fully responsible toward the European Parliament of the Eurozone. The European Court of Justice should get the capacity to judge any institutional or constitutional case in relation to the Eurozone. Let’s concentrate on this federal Eurozone before dreaming about wider and even more challenging horizons. This is for your chapter on the Political Union and if I start with it because it is the most important one since the crisis completely lies in a pure governance issue.
Now let’s quickly review the rest, Banking Union:
- Here again it is absolutely counterproductive to speak about a EU deposit guarantee scheme, this is pure dream and even a non-necessary one. I even do not support this idea on the Eurozone perimeter. Such a guarantee should come if and when appropriate from the ECB in favour of very specific banks of the Eurozone under very specific circumstances. Today this is not yet necessary. Yes this is time to start to think about it for some Greek banks, but there is absolutely no ground for having here a global and permanent rule.
- the true sense of having a Banking Union is to finally turn the page of this awfully fragmented European banking market, a very costly and damaging fragmentation when states are not anymore able to address alone their own banking crisis. 13 years after the introduction of the Euro it is way time to finally recognise that the money and banking credits are the most fungible assets and therefore to finally treat them accordingly, with a strong and, unique European banking regulator. Covering all and any bank in the Eurozone. Only the ECB can take this responsibility. The sooner the better.
On the Economic and fiscal Union no major points, except that I would have put the Redemption Fund as the very first priority in order to very quickly put an end to a crisis which we could have been avoided from the very beginning.
Help Greece save itself ? Naturally, this is only common sense.
Last comment, please do not avoid the post-mortem of this crisis. Lehman is not the only guilty one around, the European institutions clearly failed and this is extremely important to recognise it if we want to improve. The Maastricht Treaty was never implemented, and nobody cared about it, the same for the Stability Pact. The Lisbon Strategy and the Agenda 2020 were and are very unfortunately just very bad jokes and nobody complained or complain. Naturally we need more Europe and more federalism, but we need first of all a much more consequent Europe. Let us stop doing as if. Launching bright ideas and fantastic commitments and never never delivering. If we treat the reforms to come as we treated the fantastic and clever reforms that were launched in the 90s, this will be just preparing a new disaster. And our continent cannot afford a new fake Europe.
Then please do not only sell sweet dreams and sweet melodies. Don't call for federalism just because you like it, you would be then counterproductive and even frighten the voters, reduce our chances. But please call for more responsibility, be consequent, even dare to take part of the responsibility which was yours and still is. This would be the most solid ground for building a very true and necessary federalism. I invite you to read on this subject Mon discours de Bruxelles and my mini essay Crise européenne, analyse d'un Indigné Européen on my blog.
Federalism yes, but please make it real, no room and no time anymore for nice dreams.
I wish you all the best.
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