Two visions of Europe
After two months of tough electoral campaign, in which, according to many observers, too little has been said about Europe and too much about national issues and controversies within the national context, finally the word goes to the voters. We are voting to renew the European Parliament, and today more than ever, this vote seems of vital importance for the lives of all of us. Although this is perhaps not well understood by citizens and the risk of very high abstention is very real.
The vote is important not only because the decisions taken in Brussels have an increasingly greater (perhaps excessive in some cases) invasiveness on the lives of all of us, but also and above all because, perhaps never before, people vote to choose between two opposing visions of what should be the Europe of the future. In short, it is a question of deciding between those who want to cede even more sovereignty to a sort of superstate, with all that that would entail, and those who instead want a Europe that should do what individuals alone cannot do.
The real ambiguity that has gripped Europe since its foundation is in fact, essentially, on what basis the union of the 27 should be created and above all what form of state it should have. In short, it is about the comparison between the idea of a federalist Europe versus that of a confederal Europe. And it is a substantial difference not only in technical but also substantial terms, which could profoundly change the lives of all European citizens.
According to the traditional (positivistic and dominant) approach, the federal constitution it is a national act that grants sovereign powers to the federation alone, which can be modified by a qualified majority by the member states. There confederation instead it is a treaty of international law which leaves sovereign prerogatives to the constituent units, susceptible to modification only by respecting the unanimity principle.
To stay in our country, it is no coincidence that in this electoral composition there even exists a list, that of Emma Bonino and Matteo Renzi which is called the United States of Europe, and which therefore bases its very essence as a list precisely on the future idea of a federal Europe. On the other hand, as we know, there are the centre-right parties, led by the Brothers of Italy and the League, which are in favor of a form of confederal Europe.
A supranational body that should do few things, such as common defense, industrial policy, border defense, foreign policy, which however does not affect the sovereignty of individual nations, which maintain their own strong identity. Which then seems to be the same idea on the basis of which the Treaties of Rome in 1957 were signed, which were voted for by all the parties, except socialists and communists (and this too must be remembered for those who now accuse the Prime Minister’s party of being anti-Europe ).
The words of one of the founding fathers of the Union, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, who presented his model of integration in stages at the end of the 1950s are still engraved in our memory: “Europe is not created in a one shot…”. A supranationality that was limited to a “limited but decisive point” seemed achievable to him. Referring to his plan as the “first cornerstone of a European Federation”, he implicitly committed himself to achieving future milestones.
During the negotiations that preceded the historic Treaty of Maastricht, the British expressed their old fundamental reservations against federalism. Of course, the word “federal” does not appear in the text of the treaty. Another term has instead emerged as a general principle of European Union law: subsidiarity, which states that decisions must be made as close as possible to the people who are directly affected by them and can only be dealt with at a higher level when the action at the higher level is deemed most effective.
De Gaulle, in a press conference on 15 May 1962, said: “There can be no other Europe than that of the States; everything else is myth, speeches, superstructures. “States are the only entities that have the right to command and the power to be obeyed,” However, over the years, the subsequent steps towards greater integration (the strengthening of the powers of the parliament, the creation of a European electorate, the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon on the reform) have meant that the concept of Europe has increasingly shifted towards the federal state option.
Which is the prevailing idea of the left and centrists in Italy. So it would certainly have been useful for this theme to be central in the political debate that led to these European elections, while with a few exceptions, such as the formation of Bonino and Renzi on the one hand and Fdi on the other hand, to instead defend the thesis of a confederal Europe with force, the right emphasis was not given to what is instead such an important theme and which will certainly be one of the central themes in the next legislature, that of the reform of the treaties, which occupied the debate in Strasbourg in the last part of the pass.
Who knows, perhaps focusing attention on how Europe will actually be able to have an influence on our lives would have convinced some of the many likely abstentions to instead go to the polling station and express their right and duty to vote.
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