Brussels, 20/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - “An Italian bipartite initiative in favour of convening a new Messina Conference of countries of the European Union that are prepared to sign a federal-type pact”, has been suggested to Italy's economics minister, Giulio Tremonti, by the president of the federalist organisation “Puissance Europe/Weltmacht Europe”, Bernard Barthalay. In a letter to Tremonti after his article in the FT (co-signed by Jean-Claude Juncker, in which the two ministers argue for the emission of eurobonds), Barthalay hopes to see a gesture from Italy that “returns to its glorious European policy past, the glories of De Gasperi, Einaudi and Spinelli”. Such an initiative, writes Barthalay “would soon find a favourable response in the Eurogroup, filling the current vacuum there caused by the lack of presence and lack of vision demonstrated by Berlin and Paris”.
Puissance Europe says the idea of issuing eurobonds “encapsulates, in a seemingly technical manner, the road to the United States of Europe within the perimeter of the Eurogroup - emitter, budget, spending, sustainable resources, taxes, consent, parliamentary representation, constitution”. Of course, “it's a political choice” and “the national parliaments of the Eurogroup, holders of fiscal sovereignty, which are on the front line”. This highly positive approach does not prevent Puissance Europe from mentioning in its letter to Tremonti two major reservations about constructive contribution to the eurobonds project - the first is the need to set up, before the end of the year, “a Budget and Fiscal Institute, along the lines of the European Monetary Institute, the ECB's precursor”, that “would be able to reassure governments and opinion”; and the second is that “the emerging history of Eurogroup's public finances must make progress openly” so that bonds, even eurobonds, “are issued by a Treasury, and not by a Debt Agency”. (Gp/transl.fl)