Essential demand. It's become an avalanche - Europe's political unity is being called for everywhere by everyone. This is not just the opinion of a political current, a few senior figures, federalist organisations or the European institutions - it has become a demand from the European Central Bank and other senior officials responsible for managing the euro. It is also being called for by an increasing number of actors from the financial community. The nearer we get to the day when the treaty on budgetary discipline has obtained the necessary number of ratifications to enter into force, the more political union will assert itself as an essential component that will enable monetary union to function appropriately.
Several politicians have already previously affirmed that it is inescapable. I will leave aside the federalists, for whom this has always been the way forward, irrespective of developments involving the euro. In his announcement on the treaty on budgetary discipline (also inexactly known in English as the fiscal compact), the former French prime minister, François Fillon, added that “more solidarity requires more political unity… the time has now come to pass from one stage to another: that of genuine political union. I have always fought for a political Europe, the urgency of which is now acknowledged.”
This position was hitherto regarded as an affirmation of principle or a federalist dream. It has now become an essential demand made by economic and monetary union (EMU) leaders. Completion of EMU and its operational management will only be possible if political unity becomes a reality. Warnings on this are mounting all the time, such as this one, for example: “Eurobonds will only be possible in the context of genuine political unity and genuine European government.”
Crucial for the euro. Mario Draghi, the president of the ECB, continually points out that political union goes together with monetary union and that the “growth pact”, which will accompany the treaty on budgetary discipline, must be set in the context of the political relaunch. His most explicit statement on this was quoted in this column last week (see EUROPE 10623): “Eurozone member governments must together and irreversibly define their vision of the economic and political construction which will sustain the single currency.” At the beginning of the year, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing had already written that the loss of national sovereignty resulting from the future treaty would necessarily be followed by political unity. The presence of the EU as it stands (with Mr Barroso and Mr Van Rompuy) at G8 meetings is already an indication of future European political unity. The former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, has just confirmed this: “We cannot create eurobonds without at the same time moving towards political union.” According to one of my fellow journalists, Denis Monod-Broca, “inventing a currency without a state, whilst hoping that its existence might give birth to one, was madness”.
Combating irregularities in the financial community. It is obviously easier to assert this today than when the euro was created, but the time has now come where everyone recognises that without political power the euro is subject to abuses being committed by the financial world, including the ratings imposed by the rating agencies. The governor of the Bank of Italy declared in his most recent annual report that if European monetary union was a federal state, its accounts would be better than those presented by the US.
Undoubtedly, it is not easy to define the new position and harder still to put it into practice. The beginnings of political Europe are obviously linked to financial and economic considerations. The German authorities are not wrong to underline that they are unable to finance eurobonds without being able to evaluate and monitor them, at least at a European level, with regard to how they are used.
Gradual political unity. Political unity, however, goes much further. It really means that decisions on alliances, war and peace are taken together. It is also necessary at the same time to ensure that national characteristics are respected and that member states and their respective populations are not prepared to give up their autonomy or their specific national characteristics, which is neither possible nor desirable. The nature of a country's people is not transformed by decree. Legal instruments for gradual political unity exist and member states that wish to participate in this unity can do so. The first and urgent steps unavoidably have to correspond with certain losses in national sovereignty implicit in the new financial and budgetary discipline, and this aspect must be clarified during the European Council at the end of the month.
(FR/transl.fl)