Friday 21 October 2016

Draghi on the occasion of De Gasperi prize

I’ve remarked and lamented several times that “normal” people who have an interest in the EU working well, doing more and better than it is now of the things we need, don’t currently have a voice to represent them. National politicians are in a clear conflict of interest, and all too ready to invoke “national sovereignty” as some sort of ideal condition and excuse for inaction. The *many* who have worked in various countries, perhaps need to pay taxes and receive pensions across the 20th century states, or have started families in other regions, perhaps intercultural, feel European and need more. This is a large and growing number, an important and vibrant fraction of population in all EU regions, and I do wonder how it can get its voice heard. Not very clearly through the national MPs; not very clearly through the MEPs who also in the current system are a representation of national interests. This is a silence that needs to be filled – future EU structures must evolve. We also must find some bottom-up way or getting heard.

What we have today is that there are very few authoritative voices from the “top” who can take a European stance. I had the pleasure of finding and reading Mario Draghi’s speech last month, as he received the “De Gasperi Prize” in Trento  (De Gasperi was prime minister of Italy in the 8 years after World War II, and one of the key positive political figures in Italy's reconstruction and in establishing early European structures). I was going to summarise the speech in my own words, but I decided instead to translate it all. It's amazing that a banker (Draghi is head of the European Central Bank) should provide these striking words (stick to the end!). Draghi, 13th September 2016:

I have so many reasons to be grateful and honored by your decision to attribute to me today the De Gasperi prize. His figure, in the memory of his experience, send us an inspired message, strong, confident: "In Europe we go forward together in freedom." This message is rooted in European history of the last century. The ultimate reason for existence of government is to offer its citizens physical and economic security and, in a democratic society, to preserve the freedoms and individual rights along with social fairness, reflecting the judgment of the same citizens. 

Those who after World War II turned their eyes to the experience of the previous thirty years concluded that those governments that had emerged from nationalism, populism, from a language in which charisma was accompanied to lies, had not given their citizens security, fairness, freedom; they had betrayed the very reason for their existence.

 In tracing the lines of international relations between the future governments, De Gasperi and his contemporaries concluded that only cooperation between European countries in the context of a common organization could ensure mutual security of their citizens. 

Democracy within each country would not be enough; Europe also needed democracy among its nations. It was clear to many that erecting barriers between countries would have made them more vulnerable, and also less secure because of their geographic proximity; withdrawing within their own borders would make governments less effective in their action. 

In the words De Gasperi spoke in various speeches during those years we see his vision of how this community process was to be characterized. 

The common challenges should be faced with supranational strategies instead of intergovernmental. De Gasperi tells the Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (CZECH) 1954: “from 1919 to 1939 about seventy intergovernmental treaties have been prepared, and all have been reduced to scrap paper when we had to go to their implementation, because there was no joint control of common resources”. The experience of politicians was reflected in the analysis of famous economists including Ragnar Nurkse, showing how intergovernmental treaties ended up supporting protectionism. 

 Integration should first and foremost respond to the immediate needs of citizens. In his words: “we have to start by sharing only the minimum required for the realization of our most immediate goals, and do so through flexible formulas that can be applied in a gradual and progressive manner.” 

 The community’s actions should be focused in areas where it is clear that action by individual governments would not be enough: joint control of raw materials of military importance, in particular coal and steel, was one of the first examples. In this way the fathers of the European project were able to combine effectiveness and legitimation. The process was legitimized by popular support and had the support of governments: the project was directed towards goals in which the action of European institutions and the benefits to citizens were directly and visibly connected; Community action did not limit the authority of the Member States, but rather strengthened it and so received the support of governments. 

Motivating De Gasperi and his contemporaries was not just the failed experiences of the past, but also the immediate success brought by these first key decisions of the postwar period.

 The results obtained by working together. 
Peacebuilding, this fundamental achievement of the European project, produced growth immediately, setting a path to prosperity. By comparison we have the ravages of two world wars. 

 GDP per capita in real terms fell by 14% during the First World War and by 22% during the Second, canceling much of the growth of the previous years. 

Economic integration built on this peace in turn produced significant improvements in living standards. Since 1960, the cumulative growth of GDP per capita in real terms was higher by 33% in the EU 15 than in the US. In the poorer European countries the standard of living converged towards the levels of the richest. EU citizens acquired the right to live, work and study in any country of the Union; with the establishment of the courts of European Justice they enjoy an equal level of protection wherever they live. 

The single market, one of the main successes of the European project, has never been just a scheme to enhance integration and efficiency of markets. It was mainly a choice of those values represented by a free and open society, a choice of the EU citizens. 

The European project has sanctioned political freedoms, has from its beginning promoted the principles of liberal democracy. Guarantor of democratic principles, it served as a point of reference for those countries who wanted to escape dictatorship or totalitarianism; so it is has been for Greece, Portugal, Spain and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The Copenhagen criteria and the Charter of Fundamental Rights ensure that all EU countries comply with well-defined political principles, recognized in European and national laws. 

There is no doubt that these freedoms have contributed immensely to the welfare of Europe. It is also for these freedoms that today a huge flux of refugees and migrants seek their future in the European Union. 

European integration has ensured many years of physical and economic security to its citizens, perhaps for longer than has ever occurred in the history of Europe, at the same time spreading and growing the values of an open society. The European citizens who have started this process, and we who have experienced it, have proved to the world that freedom and security are not mutually exclusive. Rooting democracy we have ensured peace. 

 New challenges for Europe 
A growing dissatisfaction with the European project, however, has characterized the last years of this path. In the referendum of June 23 UK citizens have voted for an exit from the EU. 

 For some of the EU countries these were years that have seen the most serious economic crisis of the postwar period, with unemployment, especially among young people, reaching unprecedented levels in the presence of a social state whose margins for action shrunk for low growth and the constraints of public finance. These were years in which, in an aging continent, uncertainty grew about the sustainability of our pension systems. These were years in which large-scale migration called into discussion ancient customs of life, social contracts accepted for a long time. This awakens insecurity, arouses defenses. 

This disaffection has certainly also other causes: the end of the Soviet Union, resulting in the disappearance of the nuclear threat, have diverted attention from the notion of "safety in numbers." The balance of forces among the largest nations, ongoing geopolitical tensions, wars, terrorism, the changes in global weather, the effects of the continuous, relentless technological progress: in a short span of time all these factors interacted with the economic consequences of globalization, in a world inattentive to the distribution of its quite extraordinary improvements. While in the emerging economies this has redeemed from tyranny of poverty billions of people, in the advanced economies the real income of the most disadvantaged part of the population has remained at the levels of a few tens of years ago. The sense of abandonment felt by many is not surprising. Anxiety is growing. But the political response to this sometimes brings to mind the period between the two wars: isolationism, protectionism, nationalism. This already happened in the past: At the end of the first phase of globalization, in the early twentieth century, several countries, including those with a tradition of immigration like Australia and the United States, introduced restrictions on immigration, in response to fear in the working classes of losing jobs to the newcomers willing to work for lower wages. But rejecting these responses, although justified, must not prevent an examination of the causes of the lower participation to the European project. 

Again the foresight in the words of De Gasperi helps us to understand: "If we will build only common administrations, without a higher political aim enlivened by a central body, where the national aims can meet (...) we risk that this European activity, in comparison to lively national vitality, will be seen as cold and lacking ideals - It may also appear at some point to be a superfluous superstructure and perhaps even oppressive ".

 The structure of European integration is solid, its core values continue to give it a base, but we have to direction this process to answer more effectively and more directly the citizens, their needs, their fears and concentrate less on developing its institutions. Institutions are accepted by citizens not for their own sake but only insofar as they are necessary tools to provide these answers. 

 At other times it was rather the institutional incompleteness that prevented an optimal management of changes imposed by external circumstances. Think of the Schengen Agreement. Despite having largely eliminated internal European borders, it did not provide for a strengthening of the external ones. Therefore the onset of the migration crisis was perceived as a destabilizing loss of security. 

To these needs and concerns, the European Union and the nation states have given so far a deficient response. The polls, along with the decline of support to integration European Economic, also show public opinion having less confidence in the European Union and even less in the national states. 

This is not only true for Europe: data indicate even in the US diminished public confidence towards almost all institutions: the Presidency, the Congress and the Supreme Court. The fact that this is a worldwide phenomenon should not, however, be justification for us Europeans, because we alone in the world we have built a supranational entity in the knowledge that only with it the national states would give those answers that they were not able to give alone. 

Can Europe still be the answer? 
The question is simple but crucial: is working together still the best way to overcome the new challenges that we are facing? 

For various reasons the answer is yes, without conditions. If these challenges are of a cross-continental nature, then acting only at the national level is not enough. If they are global, then it’s the collaboration between its members that makes a strong European voice. 

The recent climate change negotiations are an example. The global issue can be addressed only through coordinated policies at the international level. The critical mass of Europe speaking with one voice has led to results well beyond the reach of individual countries. Only the pressure exerted by the European countries, who presented a common front, has enabled the success of the Paris conference on climate. Only the existence of the European Union has enabled building this common front. 

In a world where technology reduces physical barriers, Europe also exerts its influence in other ways. The ability of Europe, with its market of 500 million consumers, to impose the recognition of property rights globally, or respect for the rights to privacy on the Internet, is obviously higher that any Member State could hope to achieve alone. 

National sovereignty remains in many respects the key element of the government of a country. But as regards the challenges that transcend its borders, the only way of preserving national sovereignty, that is, to make the voice of their citizens in a global context, it is for us Europeans to share voices in the European Union, which has demonstrated can work as a multiplier of our national strength. 

As for the answers that can be given only at the supranational level, we should adopt the same approach that has enabled De Gasperi and his contemporaries to ensure the legitimacy of their actions: focus on interventions that bring tangible and immediately recognizable results. Such interventions are of two orders. The first is to carry out the initiatives already in progress, because stopping in the middle of the road is the most dangerous choice. We would have taken away from nation states part of their powers without creating at Union level the ability to provide citizens with at least the same degree of safety. 

A genuine single market can stay long free and fair only if all parties who take part are subject to the same laws and rules, and have access to systems judicial that apply them in a uniform manner. The free market is not anarchy; it is a political construction that requires common institutions capable of preserving freedom and fairness among its members. If these institutions are lacking or do not function adequately, we will end up eventually restoring nation boundaries to address the need for public safety. Therefore, to maintain an open society the single market must be developed fully. 

What makes this different today from the past is urgent attention that we should put towards the redistributive aspects of integration, towards those who have paid the highest price. I do not think there will be great progress on this front, and more generally in terms of market opening and competition, unless Europe will listen to the appeal of the victims of a societies built on the pursuit of wealth and power; if Europe, as well as a catalyst of integration and arbitrate of its own rules does not also become a moderator of its results. This is a role that today it is up to national states, but they often do not have the strength to see it through fully. It is a task that is not yet defined at European level, but that fits the characteristics outlined by De Gasperi: it complements the activities of national states, and legitimates European action. Recent discussions regarding the fairness of taxation, about a European insurance fund against unemployment, about funds for retraining, and other projects with the same footprint, go in this direction. 

But because Europe should intervene only where national governments are not able to act individually, the response must originate in the first place from the national level. We need policies to kickstart growth, reduce unemployment and increase individual opportunities, while providing the essential level of protection for the weakest. 

Second, if and when we will launch new joint projects in Europe, these must obey the same criteria that made possible the success of Seventy years ago: they should be based on the consensus that the intervention is actually necessary; They should be complementary to action by governments; they should be visibly connected to the immediate concerns of citizens; They should address unequivocally areas of European or global reach. 

 If we apply these criteria, we see that the involvement of Europe is not necessary in many areas. But it is necessary instead in other areas of clear importance, where European initiatives are not only legitimate but essential. Among these today specifically: immigration, security and defense. 

Both sets of interventions are essential, since the unresolved internal divisions, concerning for example the completion of EMU, are likely to distract us from new geopolitical, economic and environmental challenges that have emerged. It is a real danger today, that we cannot afford. We must find the strength and intelligence to overcome our differences and move forward together. 

To this end, we must rediscover the spirit that allowed a few great leaders, in far more difficult conditions than today, to overcome mutual distrust and succeeding together instead fail alone. In conclusion I come to mention Alcide De Gasperi, whose words retain from 1952 all their actuality: “Economic cooperation is certainly the result of compromise between each participant’s natural desire for independence, and prominent political aspirations. If European economic cooperation had depended on compromises put forward by the various administrations involved, we probably would have stumbled on weaknesses and inconsistencies. It is therefore the political aspiration to unity that must prevail. We must be guided first of all by the fundamental knowledge that the construction of a united Europe is essential to ensure peace, progress and social justice.”

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.