The “double entry” accounting system by Luca Pacioli¹, that of the “patrimonial system”, (before the “revenue accounting system” began to give to the most talented accountants, to the most refined mathematicians and to the most clever financiers the possibility to let the destruction of assets pass for creation of profits), has finally rendered its arithmetic verdict on the end of the world supremacy of the dollar, which lasted for ninety years. Committed for trial for fraudulent bankruptcy. Waiting for the markets and the Courts to emit their respective judgements, it can be useful to go back over this currency in its two lives: currency of a creditor powerful country from the Twenties to the Sixties, currency of an “empire of debt” ² from the Seventies up to now.

Three different Keynes allowed us to preview its evolution: the young officer of the English Treasury, who in 1919 resigned from the financial delegation at the peace table in protest against the reparations imposed on Germany³; the aged professor who, in 1936, introduced in the economic science expressions as animal spirits, state of expectations, liquidity traps and other strange things corresponding to observable real behaviours and able to give theoretical explanations to the experience of massive and long lasting unemployment⁴; finally, the plenipotentiary who at Bretton Woods in 1944, old and sick, was defeated, together with the British Empire, in his extreme attempt to avoid, with his bancor, the predominance of the dollar⁵. In the post-war period, the goal indicated by Keynes, namely to create an international monetary base linked to a non-inflationary development of the world more than to the needs of a single powerful country, was pursued by Robert Triffin⁶.

According to the masterly reconstruction made by Hudson⁷, the dollar supremacy began in 1917, when the US Government financed the war efforts of Great Britain, France and Italy against the Central Empires, imposing the intergovernmental financing model instead of the private bank loans and of the friendly aids from allies, until then commonly used to tackle the financial needs of wars. The European States, to combat against each other, bought armaments from their ex-colony, got into debt with the American Government and were not even able to win the conflict by themselves. The final intervention of the US, when the European States were almost at the end of that horrible carnage, made it the real winner of the war.

The problem of the inter-alliance debt got intertwined with that of the German reparations. Germany, argued Keynes at Versailles, could not pay the reparations to Great Britain and to France without selling goods and services to the winners, who, nonetheless, did not mean to make room for that in their markets. At the same time, the “winning” European powers were not able to reimburse the debt contracted with the American Government without collecting the German reparations or getting the means needed through a commercial surplus. The reparations, in short, could and did eventually lead to a second world war. Ignored, Keynes resigned and wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace. The prophecy was understood only when it came true, but at least it was useful for managing the second post-war period better than the first.

Roosevelt, just in office, was responsible for the failure of the 1933 London Conference, from which Great Britain and France expected, as the Hoover administration had let them hope, the remission of their debt or at least a moratorium, and therefore the possibility to come to a transaction with Germany. The formal explanation offered by the Roosevelt administration was that the US in 1917 was not yet an ally but only an “associate” in the war. The New Deal, which within the US was envisaging policies favourable to debtors, applied towards the European States a most rigorous creditor policy, together with protectionist measures. The debtor Countries, which wanted to honour their commitment towards the US, as the possibility of exports was excluded, asked more pressingly for the payment of the German reparations. This greatly favoured Hitler’s campaign and pushed Europe towards its own destruction.

In 1936 Keynes published his General Theory and sided for the imitation of the New Deal by Great Britain. Undoubtedly, the New Deal, launched already some years before, put into place for the first time policies supporting the monetary demand and direct public interventions in the economy, that Keynes deemed essential to guarantee a stable level of income and an almost full employment in the capitalistic system characterized by complex financial institutions, whose instability was intrinsic in their investment-financing models⁸. However, the application of policies similar to those of the New Deal, therefore of a “beggar your neighbour” type, by the single national States could lead directly to war. This contradiction could be less visible to Roosevelt and Keynes, thanks to the size and richness of the internal market for the former and to the imperial space for the latter, but for the other European States its undervaluation was the most ruinous mistake of their economic nationalism. English federalists saw the contradiction, denounced it and supported a new international order, but the world had taken another path and Lionel Robbins himself, in the post-war period, regretted that he had opposed the “reflation” suggested by Keynes⁹.

The financial tools with which the US Government supported the Allies before and during the Second World War (cash and carry and lend-lease) added a new and unsustainable weight to the previous debt, allowed the Americans to impose to Great Britain the renunciation to her imperial status, definitely strengthened the American position in the world and sanctioned the US succession to Great Britain as the hegemonic power. Therefore, the European national States' division handed the entire continent over to the US.

The agreement reached at Bretton Woods with the adoption of the White Plan (a gold exchange standard founded on the convertibility of the dollar in gold at the price of 35 US$ per ounce) and the rejection of the proposal put forward by Keynes (an international currency denominated bancor), sealed the success of the American project of a unilateral dominance on the Western world. The success of the dollar as the international currency, the American power of veto at the International Monetary Fund, the use of the World Bank to support an international division of labour favourable to American exports, the double standard which became the GAAP rule in commercial matters, made up the bone structure of the economic system corresponding to the American hegemony.

The US obtained Europe's final renunciation to any colonial ambition during the Suez crisis (1956), when it asked the IMF to make its support to the pound conditional on the retreat of the Anglo-French troops from the Canal. The Americans, as illustrated by Hudson, were aiming at taking over the English Empire since the times of the first intergovernmental loan in 1917. The crisis of the pound in 1956 was caused mainly by the conversion of the sterling balances into dollars. They were Great Britain's debts vis-à-vis its Colonies for the supply of groceries to the US, the main British contribution to the war. At Bretton Woods, Keynes asked for a bilateral clearing regarding these “deposits” between Great Britain and its Colonies, in order to reimburse them gradually with the income coming from exports, but the US asked and obtained, together with the abandonment of the imperial status, the multilateralization of those British debts.

More than once (with regard to the 1917 loan, the London Conference and Bretton Woods) Hudson reflects on the reasons at the root of the British acquiescence to the American requests, and tries different answers. Firstly, that Great Britain was convinced of the need to keep the creditor policy strong, honouring the commitments even in a debtor position, because that policy, as well as private property, was a pillar of capitalism, and the British leading classes of the time, amongst which there were also supporters of fascism and nazism, feared communism more than anything else. Secondly, Hudson’s hypothesis is that Great Britain resigned itself to pass the baton to the US, in order to realize through them the diffusion of the English language and culture (that is, their “race”) worldwide. Each of these explanations includes relevant aspects, but one cannot forget that in reality Great Britain did not have other possibilities: the division of the national sovereign States and their wars delivered the entire Europe in the hands of the US.

The acceptance of the dollar as the international currency, when the US was in a leading position during the “golden years” between 1946 and 1965, can therefore be easily understood. The Bretton Woods monetary system had reorganized the “free world” around the dollar, as the British Empire had been organized around the pound. The US represented more than half of the world's gross product, had almost the totality of the gold reserves and was the only one able to finance the reconstruction and the economic recovery in the post-war period. It did it in a masterly manner, for the clear correspondence between reconstruction and the American reason of State, for the improvement in the way economy was perceived (a quarter of a century had passed since the Economic Consequences), and finally, perhaps, for its idealism (at least in a minority always present in American history). The US was nevertheless able to prolong the international role of the dollar until today, forty years after the end of the gold convertibility (in 1968 it was limited to the Central Banks and in 1971 it was abolished by Nixon). The power exercised by the US as creditor is evident, but the one exercised as debtor needs some explanation. As guessed by Triffin, the adoption of the dollar as the international currency could end up in two opposite situations (the Triffin dilemma): a shortage of the international currency in the case of a surplus of the American balance of payments, and an excess of dollars in the opposite case. After the dollar-shortage of the Fifties, there came the dollar-inflation with the wars in Korea and above all in Vietnam. After the declaration of the end of the dollar convertibility in gold, the gold-exchange standard became, even formally, a dollar standard, which allowed the US to finance a series, until today almost uninterrupted, of export-balance deficits.

Until 1982, the deficits were caused by capital flows: the US bought, getting into debt, the companies of the rest of the world, gained high profits and capital gains on its investments, and paid low interests on its Treasury Bills and on its Treasury Bonds. The balance of current payments did not present unbalances. Europe and Japan were in this phase the main investors in the US. However, from 1982, the deficit involved the current account balance of goods and services, and it worsened until it reached 5-7% of the GDP, not very affected by the changes in the dollar exchange rate (also because the dollar was devalued vis-à-vis the wrong currencies: too much versus the euro, too little versus the yuan). The military costs, continuously increasing, were financed with foreign debt without a corresponding increase in tax rates, which were on the contrary lowered for the upper classes. The Government therefore avoided to ask Congress, and the American people, to support the war costs. The “deficit without tears”, opposed in vain by De Gaulle and Rueff, allowed to finance the cannons without renouncing to the butter.

Europe brought itself to safety with the creation of the euro, a process which lasted for thirty years. The main investors in the US were in this second phase the oil-exporting countries and the Asian countries, which were exporting industrial products (with extensive use of low-cost labour, without social dues, without environmental restrictions, with a strong State-control on the exchange rate). The export revenues of these countries, deposited in US banks and mainly reinvested in US Treasury bonds, made the US the largest world debtor. But the accumulation of the deficit made the debt unsustainable.

It would be really surprising if the American Government and the too many authorities in charge of controlling the US financial system, every day under pressure for the need to renew the old debts and to place new ones, were worried about exercising more stringent controls, about impeding the most dangerous financial experiments, about limiting the creation of financial institutions not subject to the Fed's rules, and about putting at last a limit to the leverage levels, tending to infinity. As illustrated by Minsky, in a capitalist system like ours (the true one, not that of the Chicago boys’ books) instability is intrinsic, because the physiological financing phases (hedge financing) cause an increase in profits, and consequently an increase in the value of capital assets, which pushes towards a speculation on their prices through speculative financing tools, which can end up in the need to make new debts to just finance the interests alone on previous debts (the Ponzi financing). This is the path to bankruptcy. This is a different explanation from that given by Galbraith¹⁰ or Shiller¹¹, of an irrational expectation of a continuous increase in the stock exchange, because Minsky underlined the endogenous character of instability: even if all the operators behave rationally, the sum of their rational behaviours is not sustainable by the economy as a whole.

The fundamental issue is therefore the international role played by a domestic currency: with the US Government busy with the placement of debts, and the controlling Authorities willing to take no notice, bankruptcy is not an enigma any more¹². Market fundamentalism, deregulation, privatisation/expropriation of public properties and of natural monopolies, all the Chicago paraphernalia talked about by Reagan and his successors served only as a smokescreen to cover the US, while it was putting in place the most ruthless debtor policy, according to which debts are not to be paid.

This crisis is not like the others, but it is the last convulsion of the international role of the dollar. The world economic recovery cannot be pursued and the relapse into protectionism and war cannot be avoided without radical reforms:¹³,
the creation of a world currency unit, with functions similar to those of the European currency unit (ecu) in the phase preceding the creation of the euro;
the entrusting of the world economic and financial supervision powers to the IMF, transformed into a true economic Council of Ministers of the UN (corresponding to the European Ecofin), as already suggested by Delors;
the entrusting to the Bank of International Settlements of the functions of Central Bank of the world system (or of the system of monetary systems);
the entrusting to the European Central Bank of banking and financial supervision functions in the Eurozone, and to the BIS of the corresponding functions at the world level;
the institution of independent authorities, in Europe and worldwide, with the functions today entrusted, with a conflict of interests, to the rating agencies;
the institution of a public insurance company at world level for the coverage of global risks, or, at least, of an authority for the independent evaluation of risks, to be a reference for the insurance market;
the commitment to a common struggle against illegal financial flows, disguised and secret, which make drugs, international crime and terrorism possible and profitable, to be pursued even in their off-shore havens;
the use of the World Bank to pursue goals of human development and for the battle against poverty.

1 Fra’ Luca Pacioli (Borgo San Sepolcro 1445 - Rome 1517), pupil of Piero della Francesca, mathematician and Franciscan, is the inventor of the “double entry”.
2 Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin, Empire of Debt. The rise of an Epic Financial Crisis, 2006, Hoboken.
3 John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1919, Cambridge.
4 J.M.K., The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936, London.
5 Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes. Volume Three. Fighting for Freedom 1937-1946, 2000, New York.
6 Triffin’s works, from 1935 to 1988, were translated in Italian and collected in the volume “Dollaro, euro e moneta mondiale”, with a preface by Alfonso Iozzo, 1997, Bologna. For this article, I make particular reference to: Robert Triffin, Our International Monetary System: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, 1968, New York.
7 Michael Hudson, Super Imperialism. The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance, second edition, 2003, London; first published in 1972.
8 The introduction of financial instability is the most innovative aspect of the Keynesian economy. However, it is ignored by the neo-classical synthesis and it is seen as banal by the same neo-Keynesian models. A deeper examination of the Keynesian Theory, compared to the simplistic general opinion, was necessary only at the end of the golden years (1946-66) with the recurrence of longer and stronger financial crises. See the two main works by Minsky: Hyman P. Minsky, John Maynard Keynes, 1975, New York; Stabilizing an Unstable Economy, 2008, New York, first published in 1986.
9 Lionel Robbins, Economic Planning and International Order, 1937, London. On Robbins and Keynes, see Guido Montani, Introduction to the Italian edition of Robbins’ works, Il federalismo e l’ordine economico internazionale, 1985, Bologna. On Robbins and the British federalists, see Lucio Levi, Federalist Thinking, chapter 6, English Constitutional Federalism and the Crisis of the European System of States between the World Wars, 2008, Lanham.
10 John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash, 1961, Boston.
11 Robert J. Shiller, Irrational Exuberance, 2000, Princeton N.J.
12 A timeless reconstruction is given by Morris: Charles R. Morris, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash, 2008, Public Affairs.
13 The suggested proposals can be found in the article by Alfonso Iozzo and Antonio Mosconi, The Foundation of a Cooperative Global Financial System. A new Bretton Woods to confront the crisis of the international role of the US dollar, in The Federalist Debate, 2/2006.

In the Gaza Strip, a new and particularly cruel chapter of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is currently being written. As a contribution to this discussion, I believe it would be useful to schematically outline five considerations of a structural nature which should act as a guide to the search for a fair and lasting solution to this historical tragedy. Such observations can be placed within the fundamental context which has been expressed by the European federalists ever since they presented a petition to the European Parliament supporting the creation of a Palestinian state.

1) The factor which triggered the Gaza War is clearly constituted by the extremist and adventurist stance adopted by Hamas. This is a movement characterised by Islamic fundamentalism and whose objectives, established in its charter, include the destruction of the Israeli state and the expulsion of all Jews from Palestine, none of whom must “escape from the holy war, neither civilians nor children”. Hamas took power in Gaza, abandoned by Israel in 2005, by winning the Palestinian elections in 2006 at the expense of Fatah, forcing out Fatah's exponents and giving rise to secession from the Palestinian National Authority, chaired by Arafat's successor, Abu Mazen. Since then, Hamas has pursued a line of systematic provocation towards Israel, particularly with missile launches towards the Israeli territory, which ultimately led to direct Israeli attacks in an attempt to eliminate such a threat.

This article condemns Hamas and its terrorist actions fully and without reservation. At the same time, however, if one wishes to obtain an adequate political overview of the situation, one must highlight the conditions in which such a movement was able to come to power with the consensus of the vast majority of the inhabitants of Gaza, and consequently draw them into its adventuristic extremism. At this stage, however, it is necessary to underline the undeniable role played by the extremism present in Israeli politics.

2) The fundamental point is that such politics are influenced by the substantial rejection of the solution to the Palestinian question indicated by the UN resolutions, which are supported by the Arab League, the more enlightened members of the Israeli and Palestinian populations, the European Union, Russia and – albeit with a number of reservations – the United States. The salient points of this solution are the following: the creation, alongside the Israeli state, of a Palestinian state whose territory would include the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem; the withdrawal of Israeli settlements from these territories; the solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees, for whom adequate compensation must be provided as well as full citizenship within the Palestinian state (this is a position which is supported by the Arab League as an alternative to the principle of returning to the lands inhabited before 1948, which would lead to unsustainable upheaval).

This arrangement – which must be accompanied by a profound and peaceful cooperation between the two states with regard to the common management of waters, some fundamental infrastructure, economic interdependence, security and holy sites – was rejected by Israel, which continued to pursue policies which prevent any kind of effective development towards an independent and active Palestinian state. This is reflected in the settlements on the West Bank (as well as those in East Jerusalem), which continue to deprive the Palestinians of the best parts of this territory, thus making their lives impossible. The evacuation of the 5,000 Israeli settlers from Gaza was carried out without any agreement with the PNA, weakening rather than strengthening its authority. The Gaza Strip, where one and a half million people are concentrated and subjected to inhuman economic conditions and appalling hygiene, has on the other hand become a veritable circle of hell thanks to the block imposed by Israel.

In this situation, in which no real progress towards an evolutionary settlement can be seen, it is inevitable that extremist and destructive tendencies establish themselves and systematically propagate. The choice made by Arafat's PLO to pursue a peaceful agreement was followed by the establishment of Hamas, and if this movement was to be destroyed through military intervention (a rather rash hypothesis), it would lead to the rise of even greater extremism.

3) Israeli extremism therefore constitutes a factor which must be taken into account in order to understand (which does not mean to justify) the consensus obtained by extremist tendencies among the Palestinian people and to take a realistic view of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Such an overview however remains incomplete if one fails to consider the objective situation, which in turn significantly feeds Israeli extremism.

Here, the fundamental point is that the security of Israel (and thus its survival) has always depended ultimately on its military strength and therefore on its ability to defeat the combined Arab (and Islamic, including Iran) forces that surround it. While this existential condition remains constant, Israel's attitude will always be irreconcilable (beyond any hesitation, wavering or apparent willingness to compromise) with the institution of an active and independent Palestinian state conforming to UN directives. This has been compounded by a militaristic, expansionist and colonialist stance which blocks the road towards a lasting peaceful settlement and maintains conditions of chronic crisis which could yet degenerate into one of regional or even worldwide implications. Such an attitude fails to guarantee Israel's future in view of unstoppable demographic, economic and geopolitical dynamics.

4) In order to find a way out of this maze, the structural factors with which Israeli attitude has to contend must undergo radical changes. In other words, a situation must be established in which the security of Israel and of the Palestinians (as well as their neighbouring countries) is not guaranteed by sporadic interventions of feeble intensity, but by permanent structural interventions on the part of an external third party. There is a significant historical example from which we should draw inspiration, and it is America's foreign policy that crucially enabled conciliation between France and Germany and, from that basis, the process of integration, pacification and democratisation in Europe. It should be remembered that America's intervention consisted of a huge aid programme both on an economic (the Marshall Plan, making crucial aid for reconstruction dependent on pacification and integration) and security level (a military presence which effectively made it impossible to proceed with politics of power between France and Germany). In the case of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, considerable economic support – necessary both for the prosperity of Israel and its ability to provide compensation for the Palestinian refugees, and to allow the development of an active Palestinian state – must be accompanied by the lasting political and military presence of a third party which, beyond the albeit necessary forces of interposition, overcomes at the root the problem of security, being entrusted essentially to Israeli power and to other local players.

5) The players whose intervention is so invaluable (and who would be capable of implementing it) are namely the European Union, the USA and Russia (who, together with the UN, constitute the Quartet which was spoken of for the first time in 2002). Not only must their intervention take place according to a UN mandate, but it must also be placed within the framework of a wider initiative aiming to bring peace to the Middle East as a whole, one which would have two fundamental aspects: a Conference for security and cooperation in the Middle East, including Iran (on disarmament, trust-building measures, Nuclear Free Zones, cooperation in areas such as technology and the environment); and the launching of a regional integration process according to the European model, starting with Israel, the Palestinian state and Jordan.

The fundamental interests of the EU, the USA and Russia in relation to the pacification of the Middle East (and therefore the solution of the central problem constituted by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) are clear, and this must be one of the priorities if one wishes to construct a fairer and more peaceful world as an alternative to degeneration towards destructive anarchy. It is equally clear that in this context the EU should be called upon to play a decisive role given its experience of regional integration and pacification (providing a model for other similar processes), its geographical position, the solemnly declared aims of its foreign policy, its political and economic weight, and the fact that it is not hampered, unlike the USA, by its being closely identified with one of the parties involved in the conflict.

The EU must therefore assume a leading role with regard to a policy – which should become one of the main commitments within the European Union's Mediterranean framework – aimed at resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict and at bringing peace to the Middle East as a whole. This in turn would bring an obligation to provide considerable long-term resources for such a policy on an economic and security level, similar in kind to those employed under the Marshall Plan along with the creation of the NATO. Such intervention will have to be notably greater than what the EU has done up to now, however useful that may have been.

Such a crucially important task for the EU also means that it must overcome the obstacle represented by its inability to act effectively on an international level, a problem which derives from its confederal limitations in the sectors of foreign policy, security, defence and finance, as well as from the consequent inadequacy of its democratic legitimacy. It is therefore necessary to strive for the full federation of the EU in order to make European unification both solid and irreversible, and at the same time to increase the chances of finding a solution to a tragic conflict that risks dragging not just the Middle East but the entire world further towards catastrophe.

With extraordinary speed Barack Obama has now embarked on the policy changes he promised during his electoral campaign and in his inauguration speech. As the first black President of the US his election represents a victory against racial prejudice. Now he must be judged on his political choices rather than on what he represents. In dealing with the current problems there are no short cuts. The most serious, with the global financial crisis in first place, are of such a nature that no political party or nation can solve them alone. It will require many years for solutions to be found and implemented. Hence, his appeal for national solidarity and international co-operation.

Obama wishes to characterize his Presidency as a new beginning. He has, therefore, reversed many of the policies put in place by George W. Bush and initiated instead the closure of Guantanamo, withdrawal from Iraq, an economic recovery plan, and plans for the development of renewable resources of energy and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, plus dialogue with Russia and the Arab world.

“The world has changed and we must change with it!” Obama stated in his inaugural address. He has abandoned the illusion of the US as the solitary superpower and promises instead to launch a new political initiative based on international co-operation. He recognises that the most important challenges facing the world today – the financial crisis, climate change, nuclear proliferation, terrorism – require much closer international co-operation. But that course is far from easy.

* * *

The benefits of globalization and a global free market can be safeguarded only by international co-operation, regulation and organization. The main risk faced by the world economic system would be a return to nationalism and protectionism. This was the major mistake made by governments after the 1929 crisis. If, in order to defend the dollar’s privileged position, the US were to open the way to an epoch of rampant protectionism, reviving the old demon of nationalism, the result would be a reduction in trade and other cross-border activities and the interruption of progress towards globalization.

In the political sphere globalization has produced two parallel trends: on the one hand, the rise of new world actors such as China, India and Brazil, until now condemned to political dependence on the West and economic backwardness; and on the other hand the decline of the US hegemony on both the economic and monetary levels and also on the military level. The novelty of the current financial and political crisis lies in the fact that the declining American power will not be replaced by another hegemonic power, as occurred when the US replaced the declining British power, but by the evolution toward a multipolar global order in which there will be no space for hegemonic powers.

The problem facing Obama is that the emerging new monetary order can no longer be governed by a national currency, although the temptation to resort to nationalism and protectionism remains strong. From the new administration we have heard appeals to “Buy American” and accusations that the Chinese government is manipulating its currency in order to promote its exports. Yet China is the main purchaser of the US Treasury Bonds and in the next few years the US will need foreign finance to feed its growing federal debt. At the same time, China needs access to the US market for its exports. This demonstrates that the world can only overcome the present crisis through co-operation.

Governments need growing financial resources to tackle the crisis. They are obsessed by the nightmare of a flight of savers from the treasury bonds. After bank defaults, there are now states which risk collapsing under the strain of the financial crisis, as shown by the examples of Iceland and Hungary. The downgrading of the so-called PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) and the serious economic difficulties now being experienced by Ireland, Britain, Austria and Central and Eastern European Countries show how the belief in the “return of the state” as a regulator of the political excesses of capitalism, as praised by Sarkozy, is simply fallacious.

The effective response does not lie with states acting alone, but within international organizations. The EU, and more precisely the euro and the European Central Bank, show how international institutions can protect states against financial storms. The fact that Britain is revising its attitude toward the European Monetary Union confirms this.

* * *

The global economy’s recovery cannot be planned without a new architecture of the global economic order. A new Bretton Woods has to be summoned to write the rules of a world economic constitutional order. A new monetary order must arise that would be representative of the principal monetary areas. The core issue is the replacement of the dollar by a basket of currencies, a world currency unit (wcu), similar to the European currency unit (ecu), which was the ancestor of the euro. The wcu would be an intermediate step towards a world currency. It is the response of reason to the economic international disorder. It is what the world needs and what the world political leaders are seeking, though in a confused fashion, in the hectic sequence of international conferences.

It is not certain that the world will run this way. An unbridled rush towards the abyss of nationalism, protectionism and even war is in progress. These are the poisonous fruits of a world that lacks government. A response to the need for a new world order can come only from politics, and more precisely from federalist-oriented politics. Since the European Union is the prime trading power in the world, it has a vital interest in keeping world markets open and strengthening those institutions that further this aim. For this reason it can and should take the lead in the reform of the international economic organizations.

The G20, the new grouping of states more representative of global economy than the G8, is supposed to widen global financial governance and to include the emerging economic powers. It represents the starting point in a process that can lead to the formation of an Economic Security Council made up of regional groupings of states as a response to the need for a global centre coordinating functions that are at present dispersed through a multiplicity of institutions operating independently of each other (G8, IMF, WB, WTO, ILO, UNEP, etc.).

Is Obama ready to take a step back from nationalism to genuine interdependence? This will be the most difficult decision that the new administration has to make in the near future. The meeting of the G20, which will take place in London in April, may clarify the intentions of the world leaders.

The Arab World, with 22 countries and 320 million people, larger in size than the US, Canada, Europe or China, with GDP of about 1.3 trillion US dollars in 2007, and with such strong common ties as language, history, culture, ethnicity and religion has not only failed to achieve a modest level of cooperation, integration and development, but has also become a battleground for widespread inter-state and intra-state conflicts, has been subjected to occupation or foreign domination and has fallen behind in major human development indexes.
I will review the failures of the current two models of Arab co-operation and integration.

1. Arab Nationalism
The birth of the Arab nationalism project lies within the framework of Islamic reformism in the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire, a mighty force between the 13th and 17th centuries, began to show signs of stagnation and chronic weakness in the 18th-19th centuries in the face of rising European powers. Military defeats, European encroachments, internal mismanagement and secessionist movements have all turned the empire into “the Sick Man of Europe”. Reforms Tanzimat in the mid-19th century were the answer, but for whose benefit was the question. The Ottomans implemented several measures of political, religious and communal reforms but with administrative centralization and an emphasis on creating an Ottoman nationality Ottomanism to keep the empire intact and strong¹, while many local communities and nationalities used these reforms to gain greater autonomy, redefine their own identities and territorial borders. For the Ottomans, the struggle was against European expansionism and internal disintegration, but for the communities and nationalities, the struggle was against European imperialism and Ottoman authoritarianism.

The ideas of reforms in Islamic societies preceded the Tanzimat, and Egypt had an early start, both through conflict with, and educational missions to the West. The shock of Napoleon’s short-lived French Expedition to Egypt from 1798 to 1801 and the new encounters with European rising imperialism in Egypt, Syria and North Africa have aroused questions over the backwardness of Moslem societies, but without challenging the overall legitimacy of the Ottoman rule and its religious bond. Rafa'a Al Tahtawy (1801-1873) and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897), both modern Islamic scholars, emphasized the ideas of liberalism, rationalism, law and public good to reform the ailing Islamic societies. Al-Afghani in particular, with his critical view of traditionalism, had an indirect role in the early development of Arab nationalism by “reinterpreting the Islamic past in modern and nationalist terms”². This emphasis on history took him to champion Pan-Islamism, uniting all Moslems under one reformed modern Ottoman Empire as the seat of the Caliphate³.

This historical emphasis, however, took Al-Kawakibi⁴ (1854-1902) to a different direction, although he shared Al-Afghani’s conviction that political reforms are the key to religious reforms⁵. By emphasizing ties of history, ethnicity, language, land and common rights, as opposed to religious ties championed by the Ottomans, Al-Kawakibi was able to redraw the boundaries of an “Arab” community thus redefining the struggle against fellow Moslem Turks on “nationalist” not religious grounds. The Arabs are the basis of Islam, the carrier of its message and have always constituted a distinct nation “Umma”. He used Ibn Khaldoun’s notion of the rise and fall of civilizations to argue that Arabism is being rediscovered not recreated.⁶.

Al-Husari (1879-1967) also emphasized language and history as factors that determine Arab identity and nationalism. According to him, “people who spoke a unitary language have one heart and a common soul. As such, they constitute one nation, and so they have to have a unified state.”⁷ Arab states are artificial creations, and the division of the Arab nation into these separate states was the reason behind the Arab defeat in the Palestine War of 1948-49⁸. People who are not aware of their Arabism have false consciousness and need to be enlightened. For him, nationalism is a living spirit that has an existence of its own regardless of the collective will or pure national origin. His ideas were much influenced by German Romantic nationalism of the 19th century. The political expression of these ideas was that Arabs should have one democratic and secular state that unites them all. Both Zureiq (1909-2000) and Aflaq (1910-1989) followed the same path.

It is clear from this brief overview that Arab nationalism is constructed as a living idea based on language and history. It breeds on culture not race, economic factors or temporal collective will. It has a mission and a national philosophy that need to be consciously embraced and transferred to future generations, and it is secular and democratic with a strong bend towards socialism. The aim is political unity in a single unitary state because the existing “individual Arab states are deviant and transient entities, their frontiers illusory and permeable, their rulers interim caretakers, or obstacles to be removed.”⁹

The political (mis)-use of this ideology was detrimental to the Arabs. The British used it in the context of World War I to encourage the Arabs to revolt against the Turks in exchange for an independent Arab state extending from Syria to Yemen after the war¹⁰. This was the Great Arab Revolt of 1916-1918 that helped the UK and France defeat the Ottomans. However, a secret agreement between these two countries divided the newly-freed land between themselves in betrayal to the Arabs¹¹. Syria, Lebanon and Northern Iraq fell to the French, while Palestine, Jordan, Southern Iraq and the Gulf to the British.

Since their independence from the UK and France, all other attempts at unity by the Arabs have failed¹². The United Arab Republic formed by Egypt and Syria in 1958 ended in 1961 with a coup in Syria. The Arab Federation between Iraq and Jordan in 1958 lasted six months and ended with a coup in Iraq, and the Tripartite Unity talks between Egypt, Syria and Iraq in 1963 also did not succeed.

The rise of Arab nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s caused much rivalry in the region between the progressive socialist republican states of Egypt, Iraq and Syria, and the reactionary monarchic traditionalist Gulf states and Jordan who gave it rhetoric support but opposed it in practice for fear of losing their power. This was the Arab Cold War¹³, which was exacerbated by foreign intervention, oil and the Arab Israeli conflict.

Arab nationalism also came into conflict with pan-Islamism. From an Islamic perspective, the bond should be religion without discrimination based on race, language, culture, colour or wealth. Pan-Islamism viewed Arab nationalism with suspicion as a foreign idea designed to divide the Moslem society. This was aided by the fact that most Arab nationalist thinkers were Christians who emphasized the personal nature of religion, and the universal nature of culture.

2. The Arab League
Having been successful in using Arab nationalism to break up the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, the British resorted to a similar strategy during World War II to regain Arab public sympathy that was tilting towards the advancing Germans in North Africa. Eden declared in 1941 that the British government was sympathetic to the ideas of strengthening the cultural, economic and political ties among Arab states¹⁴.14 Consultations took place in 1943-1944 between the then seven independent Arab states¹⁵. The Alexandria Protocol was signed in October 1944, and the Charter of the League in March 1945.

The purpose of the League is to bring Arab states closer, achieve political coordination and cooperation in six general fields:¹⁶ 1- Economic and financial affairs: including commercial relations, customs, currency, and questions of agriculture and industry, 2- Communications; this includes railroads, roads, aviation, navigation, telegraphs and posts, 3- Cultural affairs, 4- Nationality, passports, visas, execution of judgments and extradition of criminals, 5- Social welfare and 6- Health affairs. The Charter also prohibits intervention in the internal affairs of other member states¹⁷ and the use of force to settle disputes¹⁸. In foreign policy, Article 9 states that “treaties and agreements already concluded or to be concluded in the future between a member-state and another state shall not be binding or restrictive upon other members”¹⁹. The highest decision making body is the Arab League Council which oversees the work and approves the recommendations of the specialized committees for each of the policy areas outlined above. It is composed of one representative for each member state.

From its inception, the Arab League was designed to be state-centered with very limited powers, and it stayed true to its character despite its remarkable growth in terms of institutions and policy agreements over the last 60 years. Article 7 not only removes any enforcement mechanisms²⁰, but it also obstructs unified agreement on important policies causing repeated postponements and delays.

In terms of institutions, several new councils were created including the Joint Defense Council²¹, the Economic and Social Council²², the Council for Arab Economic Unity²³, in addition to 12 ministerial councils for information, interior, justice, housing, transport, environment, communication, electricity, tourism, youth and sports, social affairs and health. Moreover, two important regional development funds were created: the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development (1967) and the Arab Monetary Fund (1976). Despite the positive contributions these funds have provided in terms of economic aid, their effect was within the state, not across, and it was project-based not target-oriented. It was more of a bilateral funding than multilateral cooperation.

Perhaps the most important institutional development has been the adoption of Arab Summits in 1964 as the highest decision making body in place of the Arab League Council, although this mechanism is not mentioned in the Charter nor in the Protocol. This shift highlighted the fact that Council was powerless in the face of continued bilateral disputes among Arab states, and that political agreement by the heads of states was the only way for agreements to move forward. However, this turned more into a curse rather than blessing as political disputes prevented the regular meetings of the Summits, and subsequently, important decisions were repeatedly deferred to next rounds for further consultations²⁴. Even agreement on where the Summit would be held became a subject for dispute²⁵.

In terms of policy agreements, there are several, such as the Cultural Treaty (1946), the Joint Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement (1950), the Economic Unity Agreement (1957), the Arab Common Market (1965), the Strategy for Joint Arab Economic Action (1980), the Joint National Economic Action (1980), the Convention to Facilitate and Develop Trade Exchange among Arab States (1981), the Standard Convention for the Investment of Capital in the Arab States (1981), the Arab Charter on Human Rights (1994), the Arab Free Trade Area (1997) and the Arab Convention for the Combat of Terrorism (1998).

With this rich array of institutions and policy agreements, it is hard to imagine that inter-Arab trade has not surpassed 10% of total Arab foreign trade, except in 2002 and 2005, since the League’s establishment in 1945²⁶, that restrictions on the movement of people, goods and capital are still in place region-wide, that several violent conflicts have broken out between member states, and that threat perception in some Arab countries focus on other neighboring Arab states rather than on non-Arab states²⁷.

Following the crushing Arab defeat in 1967 and the oil boom in the Gulf states in the 1970s, Arab nationalism lost ground and the Arab system moved into further chaos during the 1980s. With Egypt’s suspension from the Arab League in March 1979 because of its peace treaty with Israel²⁸, the threat posed by the Iranian revolution of 1979 with its declared aim of exporting Islamic revolution to neighboring Arab countries, the break up of the Iraq-Iran war in 1980, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the subsequent intensification of Arab rivalries, a new trend emerged for cooperation - the establishment of regional groupings. Whether such groupings signaled the break-up of the Arab League system or a move towards greater cooperation between countries closely connected in accordance with the objectives of the League became a matter of dispute²⁹.

Three groupings were established in the 1980s: the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 1981³⁰, the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU)³¹ and the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC) in 1989³². Of the three, the GCC has been the most successful. Building on a strong and similar oil economy, close social and cultural makeup, Islamic legal code and common security threats, the GCC established a small joint military force, a Free Trade Zone in 1983. It has plans to establish a common market and a custom union by the end of 2007 and a single currency by 2010. It has unified many of its legal codes including Personal Law, Civil Law and Penal Code³³. However, the GCC is not without disputes. Both Bahrain and Oman have unilaterally signed a free trade agreement with the US, causing further disputes within the GCC on the pace and depth of economic integration plans, possibly forcing a delay in implementation of those decisions.

The other two groupings have been less successful. The Arab Maghreb Union is stalled by the Moroccan Algerian dispute over Western Sahara’s independence, which Morocco accuses Algeria of supporting. Members have complied with the UN-imposed sanctions on Libya for its role in Lockerbie which pushed Libya to effectively end its participation in the AMU and turn towards Africa. Algeria went into a violent civil war for 10 years when the parliamentary elections of 1991 brought Islamists to power, but the results were annulled by the army. Mauritania experienced several coups. None of the objectives of the AMU were achieved. The Arab Cooperation Council barely completed a year before Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and brought the organization to a halt. Jordan sided with Iraq while Egypt supported Kuwait, effectively ending the Council which was dissolved in 1994. Unlike the GCC, membership in the AMU and the ACC was open to other Arab states.

The drama of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 and its aftermath opened a new chapter in Arab vulnerabilities, and further manifested the inadequacy of the Arab League system. Not only has a member state of the League occupied another, but the League has also failed to mediate and avert the conflict, or compel Iraq to withdraw except through the help of an international force. The Arab League decision was even labeled illegal by some³⁴.

The Arab League was not designed or equipped to handle such complex political and economic issues, and has not developed the appropriate institutions and processes to respond effectively to such challenges. It fits perfectly the Federalist criticism of the Articles of Confederation as weak and ineffective.

Arab nationalism, as a centralist ideology aiming at creating one single unitary state, and the Arab League, as a very loose inter-governmental organization aiming at enhancing cooperation and coordination among Arab states have both failed to achieve the aims they have set for themselves. The Arab world, despite huge potential, continues to be weak, divided and underdeveloped. This failure has to do more with the unsuitability of these two models to the task at hand than the way they were implemented. This brings us to consider whether federalism could be a more suitable and successful alternative.

1 Hasan Kayali, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997).
2 Nikki Keddie, Sayyid Jamal ad-Dan al-Afghan: A Political Biography (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1972), p. 2.
3 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, pp. 103-160.
4 Born in Aleppo, Syria, studied in Syria and Turkey, started his active public life writing in different newspapers, held many governmental posts and served several prison sentences for anti-Turkish writings. Fearing for his life, he fled to Cairo in 1899 where he published his two books in Arabic Characteristics of Tyranny and Umm al-Qura (Mother of the Cities) referring to an imaginary meeting in Mecca by representatives from all Islamic cities to discuss political reforms. He died in 1902 presumably from poison on the order of the Ottoman ruler.
5 Al-Kawakibi, “Umm al-Qura”, in Mohamed Jamal Tahan, The Complete Works of Al-Kawakibi (Beirut, Center for Arab Unity Studies, 1995), pp.265-411.
6 Ibn Khaldoun 1332 – 1406, a pioneer Arab historian, philosopher and sociologist.
7< Abu Khaldun Sati Al-Husari, What is Nationalism? (Beirut, Dar al-Ilm lil Malayeen, 1963), p. 57 (in Arabic).
8 Al-Husari, Arabism First (Beirut, Dar al-Ilm lil Malayeen, 1965), p. 149 (in Arabic).
9 Walid Khalidi, “Thinking the Unthinkable: A Sovereign Palestinian State”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 56, No, 4 (July 1978), p. 695.
10 Letters exchanged between Hussein, ruler of Mecca and McMahon, British High Commissioner in Cairo, known as Hussein-McMahon Correspondence.
11 Sykes Picot Agreement
12 Youssef Khoury, Arab Unity Projects 1913-1987 (Beirut, Center for Arab Unity Studies, 1988) (in Arabic).
13 Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War 1958-1964: A Study of Ideology in Politics (London, Oxford University Press, 1965).
14 Ahmed Gomaa, The Foundation of the League of Arab States: Wartime Diplomacy and Inter-Arab Politics, 1941-1945 (London, Longman, 1977), p. 103.
15 Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan (Jordan), Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
16 Article 2: The purpose of the League is to draw closer the relations between member States and co-ordinate their political activities with the aim of realizing a close collaboration between them, to safeguard their independence and sovereignty, and to consider in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries.
17 Article 8: Each member-state shall respect the systems of government established in the other member-states and regard them as exclusive concerns of those states. Each shall pledge to abstain from any action calculated to change established systems of government.
18 Article 5: Any resort to force in order to resolve disputes between two or more member-states of the League is prohibited.
19 This is much toned down from the original Article 1 of the Alexandria Protocol stating that “In no case will the adoption of a foreign policy which may be prejudicial to the policy of the League or an individual member state be allowed” and prohibiting the conclusion of agreements which “contradict the text or spirit of the present dispositions”.
20 Article 7: The decisions of the Council taken by a unanimous vote shall be binding on all the member States of the League; those that are reached by a majority vote shall bind only those that accept them.
21 It was established in 1950 under the Arab League Council.
22 It was first established under the name of the Economic Council according to Article 8 of the Joint Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement of 1950, later renamed to Economic and Social Council by the Arab League in 1977. It was entrusted with the supervision of the specialized ministerial committees.
23 It was created in 1964 to implement the Economic Unity Agreement of 1957, and it has helped establish 30 unions and federations for Arab industries, business, labour and services.
24 The latest example was the Tunisia Summit in 2004 in which important decisions on Arab League reforms were expected, but the Summit never took place because of political disputes. The Arab Court of Justice (Article 19 of the Charter) had been on the Council’s agenda for several decades, but no consensus was reached to create it.
25 Libya objected holding the Summit in Riyadh in 2007 because it was accused by the Royal Saudi family to have supported an earlier assassination attempt on its Crown Prince.
26 Arab Monetary Fund, Annual Economic Report 2006, p. 147.
27 James Leonard (et al.), National threat perceptions in the Middle East (New York, United Nations, 1995).
28 Egypt resumed its membership in 1987 and the headquarters moved back to Cairo from Tunisia in September 1990.
29 Article 9 of the Charter states that “the States of the Arab League that are desirous of establishing among themselves closer collaboration and stronger bonds than those provided for in the present Pact, may conclude among themselves whatever agreements they wish for this purpose”. See for example Khalid Sekkat, Regional integration among the Maghreb countries and free trade with the European Union (Cairo, Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran, and Turkey, 1995).
30 It is composed of the six Gulf states: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain.
31 It is composed of five states in North Africa: Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania.
32 It is composed of four states in the center of the Arab World: Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Yemen.
33 The Muscat Instrument for a Unified Personal Law was ratified in 1996, while the Kuwait Instrument for the Unified Civil Law and the Doha Instrument of the Unified Penal Code were ratified in 1997.
34 Article 6 states that in case of aggression “the Council shall determine the necessary measures to repel this aggression. Its decision shall be taken unanimously”. Libya argued that it had objected to the council decision to join in the liberation of Kuwait but its objection was ignored, and thus the council decision is illegal because it was not unanimous.

The true history of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) started at the 3^rd South American Presidential Summit in the city of Cuzco in December 2004, where the South American Community of Nations was created with an agreement among the presidents of the main countries. A year later, in September 2005, in Brasilia, the Chief Executives of the South American Community of Nations set some priority objectives on the agenda, among which the political understanding of South American peoples and the social-economic integration of the region, the association of the member states of the MERCOSUR and of the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) and the necessity of integrating Surinam, Guyana and Chile to guarantee the complete union of the South American peoples. The 2^nd Summit of the South American Community of Nations that took place on 9^th December, 2006, finally set the fundamental path for the creation of the UNASUR, which took place in April 2007, during the 1^st South American Summit on Energy in Margarita Island.

The UNASUR was conceived, as stated in article 2 of its Constituent Treaty, to build “(…) through a participative and consenting way, a space of integration and union in the cultural, social, economic and political fields among its peoples, giving priority to the political dialogue, to social policies, education, energy, infrastructure and environment, among others, with the aim of eliminating socioeconomic inequality, promoting social inclusion and citizen participation, strengthening democracy and reducing asymmetries, strengthening the sovereignty and independence of its member States”.

To understand the true state of the process of regional integration in South America, we can compare it with the history of the constitution of the first regional union developed in the world, and the most advanced, i.e. that of Europe. In fact, just as the MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) reminds us of the genesis of the European Coal and Steel Community, made up of six nations by the Treaty of Paris in 1951, the constitution of the UNASUR, which includes all the South American nations, reminds – for its dimensions and objectives – of the creation of the European Union. In addition, considering its scale, its functions of environmental control, defense of human rights, prevention of conflicts and general promotion of the different multilevel processes of Latin American regional unity, the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino), which also includes Mexico and the rest of the Central American countries, could be assimilated to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Thus, South America shows a superposition of different levels of integration that is – in some ways – similar to the one existing in Europe but, at the same time, more arduous since none of these initiatives has reached a complete development. The MERCOSUR and its Andean equivalent, the Andean Community of Nations, have created so far neither a true customs union nor a market of free commercial circulation. Their parliaments have not yet overcome the character of a consultative parliamentary assembly and its arbitration courts have no effective powers. The long conflict between Argentina and Uruguay on the installation of pulp mills on the East bank of the Uruguay River has showed the inability of the MERCOSUR Parliament to establish a common environmental legislation. Moreover, the fact that this conflict is currently supervised by the International Court of The Hague shows the non-existence of suitable and reliable regional tribunals. Of course, this is just one among uncountable examples.

Simultaneously, the irruptive apparition of the UNASUR constitutes a complex scenario. To figure it out, you must imagine that the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Union coexist temporarily. The dimension contemplated for UNASUR, which is scarcely suited to institutional developments and is too much centered on financing, infrastructure and defense, adds new doubts to the future of the regional integration. This is not accidental. In each and every case (meaning the MERCOSUR, the Andean Community of Nations, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino)), the South-American governments have demonstrated to be very fond of the rhetoric of unity but scarcely devoted to make it real. There is currently no common and strong political decision to drive it forward paying the price that is unavoidable in these cases, namely the abdication of the illusion of absolute national sovereignty. The result of this curious balance between strong claims on unity and integration, and minimal political resolution to make them real has been the pretension to throw in numerous initiatives and the evident incompetence to fulfill any of them.

It is important to listen to what the Indians say, when we speak about the Mumbai (former Bombay) outrage on December 10, 2008. What they are living is a September 11: a dismaying crossroads all the same.

The discovery of having an utmost power and at the same time an utmost vulnerability. So it is for writers like Amit Chaudhuri or Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City. So it is for Amartya Sen. Less peremptory than the Westerners, they see the internal ills and at the same time the external ills. Internal ills because modernization (the incredible India of the beautiful advertisements appearing at regular intervals on BBC) causes legitimate grudges in the Muslim minorities and arrogant extremism in the Hindu. External ills because terrorists are often trained in Pakistan, feeding themselves off a conflict between India and Pakistan that is still going on. According to Sen, it is absolutely necessary to face both causes, however not with the instruments of 2001: the winner of the Nobel prize in Economics does not speak of wars and civilizations. He declares that: “the priority is to restore order and peace, in order to avoid negative effects on the economic development” of India.

The challenge looks like September 11, but the doubts about the answer are growing. The American and European way did not cure the ills but increased them. It did not bring order to Central and Southern Asia but aggravated local strife. Above all it made war banal, everywhere: when the superpower uses it as an option like any other and not as the last one, everybody falls into mimetic rivalry. This is what Pakistan does in order to protect itself from India and its influence on Afghanistan. So does Iran, in order to avoid American attacks from Kabul. So does India, suspecting connivances between Pakistan and the terrorists. In the English secret services, the idea is making its way that the word itself – war – has been ruinous. It ennobled common criminals turning them into belligerents. It blurred the conflicts’ roots, reducing them to a planetary clash between the societies of terror and consent, a clash theorized by Philip Bobbit and criticized by David Cole in the New York Review of Books: as if terror were an attractive value, comparable to Communism in the 20th century.

Last October in the Guardian, Stella Rimington, former director of the English internal services, wrote: “I hope the future US President will stop speaking about war on Terror”. The reaction to September 11 was out of proportion, the erosion of civil freedom “unnecessary, counterproductive”: war “was a mistake because it made believe that terrorism could be defeated with weapons”.

The worst defeats are those that happen when you fight wars with yesterday’s manuals: the historian Marc Bloch thought so when Hitler put France to flight and in 1940 spoke about Strange Defeat. The Western one is a strange defeat too. Two wars have been waged as if the problem were all in Al Qaeda’s ideology. As if at the origin of evil there were not unstable modernizations in Asia, loathed inequalities, deep-rooted regional conflicts.
War can be necessary but it is blind to geography and history, wrapped as it is in ideology.

It puts little flags on the maps without looking at them. If Pakistan has become the terrorist training field, it is because some diseases are systematically neglected in that country. Simplifying categories like war and terrorism prevent us from seeing the slow becoming of a country, urging to use the journalist’s lenses, who just sees the tail of history. The wars on terror are also bubbles, similar to the financial ones: reality is ignored, and in its place a new, imaginary one is built, useful for unmet purposes.

It does not make any sense to keep on fighting in Afghanistan if we do not learn to look at the geography of the players. At the Afghan borders: Central Asia to the North, Iran to the West, Pakistan to the South-East, China and Myanmar to the East. At the Pakistani borders: Iran and Afghanistan to the West, China to the North, India to the East. The harsh disputes date back to the British colonial times, when tribes and peoples were used as buffers, pawns. In the 19^th Century, this was the great Anglo-Russian game to Afghan and Indian detriment.

The mortifying game goes on
For decades, Pakistan has been a crucial and embittered nation. The Afghan war has just shifted terrorism, pushing it into the dens of Pakistan, where it had started from during the Soviet occupation, helped by the USA. A whole region in Pakistan is governed by the Taliban, at the Afghan border (the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Fata). Rebels and terrorists prosper, supported by a part of the Pakistani services, and Islamabad is hardly able to monopolize violence since it is expecting to eventually need those mafias. It needs the Tribal Areas in order to control Afghanistan and it needs the Taliban in order to stop what it perceives as an Indian threat.

We should not forget that Musharraf did not support Bush to fight the Taliban, but to fight India: he said so on September 19, 2001. Zardari, his successor, is bravely trying a rapprochement with India and to control the services. It would be disastrous to consider him already vanquished.

Pakistan feels to be in dire straits, threatened with dismemberment, and that explains its many weaknesses. The Afghan-Indian alliance, the new Indo-American connivance (which is also nuclear): these are inauspicious signs for a nuclear power still treated like a pariah.

Then there is China, which increasingly invests in Afghanistan. Seven years have passed since the war and the Pakistan issue, still decisive, has not been faced yet. This issue concerns the borders, both with Afghanistan and with India: today still scandalously undefined. Kabul contests the Durand line at the Pakistani border, perpetuating the Pakistani need, along that line, to have there an armed, even though rebel, Pashtun area. With India the border is vague, without an agreement on Kashmir. Order and peace presuppose definite and precise borders: Europe shows that. Their vanishing is a progress, when former enemies make a union. When the union is absent, undefined borders move to the minds, becoming deadly.

The strange defeat in the wars on terrorism will maybe revalue the experts, to the ideologists’ detriment. In an essay on Foreign Affairs, two outstanding experts like Barnett Rubin and Ahmed Rashid point out very practical avenues, consisting in multiple diplomatic negotiations and initiatives, against the mainstream. The fact that they do not start, strengthens the doubt that the West does want endless wars in order to both control the resources in Central Asia and oppose China. The real fight on terrorism, according to Rubin and Rashid, will start on the day when they will accept to distinguish between short and long term, and between fighters and terrorists. Al-Qaeda is not almighty: it is alive because the rebels do not have any way out (Al Qaeda “is an inspiration, not an organization” writes Bernardo Valli in La Repubblica). With the Taliban, it is time to negotiate in order to separate them from terrorism. Some of their leaders made it clear that if NATO troops go away, they will commit themselves not to attack the West.

An increased war commitment in Afghanistan is dangerous, without this diplomatic revolution. So is dangerous the idea expressed by Robert Gates, Defense Secretary, according to whom Kabul needs to have an army 204 thousand strong – soldiers and policemen – before an American disengagement. Not only could not Afghanistan pay for it (Rubin and Rashid explain how the cost of such a force, 3,5 billion dollars, would be prohibitive even if Kabul had an annual growth of 9 per cent) but war will still be its only resource, and the only resource of the whole region. It is this spiral that generates terrorism, both at local and global level. Failing to see this is suicidal on the Indian, Afghan and Western side. It generates the worst suspicions on their and our intentions.

During its XXII Congress, held on 10-12 October in Paris, Andrew Duff MEP (Lib-Dem, East of England) was elected as President of the Union of European Federalists.

When presenting his candidacy, Mr Duff outlined the Federalists' response to the current events: "Above all, the European federalists are truly engaged to combat the rise of nationalism. At a time when Europe is facing security challenges at home and abroad, when the financial system's stability is at risk, and when the consequences of climate change are becoming real, the need for European unity is greater than ever."

"'Sauve qui peut' policies will be ruinous. Only a united response as advocated by federalists makes sense. The UEF is well placed to articulate solutions and to campaign for their urgent adoption and effective implementation."

Mr Duff also emphasized the key priority for the federalists: "We need the Treaty of Lisbon ratified. If, in the course of 2009, the EU proves itself unable to settle its constitutional problems, it will be sending a message of helplessness to the outside world. Europe's citizens need and deserve a coherent system of governance that can meet aspirations and address anxieties."

"Our goal is a federal union of states and citizens with the capacity to act effectively and democratically abroad and at home. Europe is entering into its post-national age and we should shape its institutions accordingly", concluded Andrew Duff.

On the 1^st of December 2008 a group of 25 JEFers gathered in Madrid (even more than expected) very early in the morning in order to welcome the participants to the Council of the Party of European Socialists (PES) with T-shirts and flyers asking "Who is your candidate?". Inside, a group of almost 10 JEFers managed to distribute leaflets and put a motion to insert a new agenda point "Election of the Socialist Candidate for the President of the European Commission" on the seats and tables of the Council.

Responding to the Socialists' silence, JEF claimed that the decision not to nominate a socialist candidate for president meant "that the socialists in fact accept the re-nomination of Mr. Barroso". "Considering the proximity of the European Parliament elections, the political parties send a mixed signal to the electorate if they effectively pre-empt the choice of the Commission President before a single vote has been cast", said Andrew Duff, President of the Union of European Federalists.

Martine Aubry, Mercedes Bresso, Walter Veltroni, Martin Schulz, Franz Müntefering, Elio Di Rupo, Giacomo Filibeck (President of ECOSY) and other socialist activists were asked about their wish to nominate a candidate as President of the European Commission. Most of them expressed a lot of interest and support for our initiative. Some of them (Martine Aubry, Elio Di Rupo, Giacomo Filibeck) even stated their support for this idea in public during their speeches saying that they would like this proposal to be included in the PES manifesto.

During the afternoon, the group of JEF activists went out in the streets of Madrid to exchange ideas with the public about this action. Again, the population expressed positive reactions and a lot of interest for this proposal.

On 2 December in the morning, some of the activists managed to participate in the debates of the Socialist Party concerning the 2009 elections. The EP campaign of the PES will turn around a Manifesto serving as political platform, which was adopted unanimously by all national parties. The PES manifesto addresses – with Social-Democratic answers – the same issues raised in the JEF Manifesto. During the discussion, the need of strengthening the decision-making powers of the European Commission and the European Parliament were stressed and shared by most of panelists and activists.

The Manifesto (with the slogan: "People first. A new direction for Europe") will play a key role in the PES election campaign. There will be a "Manifesto tour" to launch the campaign in the different countries and subsequently five "European Days of Action" where events on the same issue will take place on the same day at local, national, and European level. Last but not least: the meeting was a wonderful opportunity to establish new contacts with PES activists.

On November 5^th, the Senate of the Republic of Argentina became the first national parliament in the world to adopt a declaration unconditionally calling for the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) "in order to strengthen the effectiveness, transparency, representativeness, plurality and legitimacy of the resolutions of the institutions that compose the UN system". In a rationale provided by Senator Sonia Escudero, it is argued that "establishing such an institution would be a decisive step in the democratic consolidation of the UN system. Without the need to change any of the 111 articles of the UN Charter, an Assembly of this range can create an important link between the United Nations, its agencies, national governments and parliaments, and civil society".

The assembly would be an advisory body that would review the activities of the UN and its agencies and give elected representatives for the first time direct representation at the global level. The Campaign for the Establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly, a global network of parliamentarians and non-governmental organizations launched in April 2007, however, aspires that a UNPA would eventually develop into a "world parliament" vested with distinctive rights and functions.

"The support given by the Senate of the República Argentina to the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly constitutes a historic milestone within an incredibly successful campaign. We expect that further parliaments will join our efforts to democratize globalization by globalizing democracy", said Fernando Pedrosa, President of Democracia Global, a non-governmental organization in Argentina which coordinates the activities of the campaign in the country.


This comment was originally published on the website of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, at the link http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/322.php. The full text of the declaration can be downloaded from that page.

André Sapir (Ed.)
Fragmented Power: Europe and the Global Economy
Brussels, Bruegel Books, 2007

The European Union is the largest single economic entity in the world, with half a billion people and a GDP slightly larger than that of the US. Its presence in the world economy is powerful: it is the largest exporter of goods and services, the largest importer of services and energy and the second largest importer of goods.

Nonetheless, its international political role does not match its economic weight and its international behaviour lacks consistency and efficacy. This is not surprising if one considers the fragmented character of the governance of Europe’s external economic policy, with responsibilities split between the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the European Council of Ministers, the Eurogroup or the member states.

It is time for Europe to wake up to its responsibilities as one of the few players able to tackle questions related to the global common.

A book published by Bruegel, a Brussels think-tank, and edited by the Belgian economist André Sapir, tackles these issues and wants to address the lack of a comprehensive study of European foreign economic policy.

The structure of this book starts by examining seven separate areas of European foreign economic policy: trade policy, development policy, external competition policy, external financial markets policy, external monetary policy, migration policy and external energy/environmental policy. This analysis is conducted through monographic studies by primary researchers, whose findings can be briefly summarised.

1. Trade policy
The response of European policy-makers to a changing international trade policy (first of all the move towards a multipolar WTO) is inadequate. Foreign policy and commercial considerations will continue to influence negotiations and trade-policy initiatives, but European strategists need to concentrate on the task of establishing a new modus operandi for the multilateral trading system. In this field the Commission can initiate trade negotiations, but must seek and obtain a mandate from the Council of Ministers, by which it should be actively monitored.

2. Development policy.
Both the European Community and the individual member States have foreign-aid programmes. While in the long run one could think about moving all the foreign-aid to the European Community, which has more power in pushing for democracy and governance (it has already been suggested that there should be a shift from policy conditionality to governance conditionality), in the medium term more coordination between EC aid, bilateral aid and aid from other donors is needed. The role of the European Community is also important in trade-related issues, given that the EC handles WTO negotiations on behalf of all member states: in this respect Europe would gain and the poor countries would also have a better chance of taking off economically if Europe were to open up its markets even further. It would be natural to let aid-for-trade be a key area.

3. External monetary and financial policy.
Europe’s fragmented representation in the arenas where international monetary and financial policy is made causes it to punch below its weight. There is a compelling need to unify Europe’s representation, so that chairs can be freed up for underrepresented emerging markets, enhancing the legitimacy of existing global institutions without diminishing Europe’s influence over their operation.

But the obstacles remain strong and are mainly linked to the lack of a single foreign policy and to the reluctance to give up historical status.

The proposal is to start the reorganisation of Europe’s representation in these arenas with the International Monetary Fund, where preferences are relatively homogeneous and the infrastructure for the harmonisation of member states’ positions is relatively well-developed. If the member states realize that their influence is strengthened without forcing them to compromise their views, then it will be possible to move forward in other international organisations.

4. Competition policy
Changes in the economic, technological and institutional environment pose new challenges to European competition authorities. Three main ways forwards should be encouraged (external reforms): a continuous effort for the harmonisation of rules; closer cooperation in the exchange of confidential information and the setting up of global antitrust institutions.

Some internal reforms may also be needed and, in particular, higher priority should be given to competition issues in other EU policies and national regulations; the independence of the European competition agency from member states’ interference should be pursued and a new research agenda on the effectiveness of competition policy in international markets should be established.

5. External financial markets policy
Apart from international accounting standards, in practice Europe hardly ever agrees on common technical standards in financial services, mainly for two reasons: internal reluctance to abandon national standards in favour of EU standards, and vested interests.

Moreover, the EU still relies largely on member states for supervision and enforcement. To play a major role in supervision and enforcement the EU would have to develop a ‘Community interest’ approach and place the supervision of financial institutions and markets with an EU-wide dimension of an EU institution, as it has for competition policy.

6. Migration policy
By 2014 EU citizens will enjoy similar freedoms to move within the entire EU27, almost as if the EU were one country. Those citizens of the world who are not EU citizens are subjected by the different member states to a restrictive and diverse set of immigration policies.

The creation of a common immigration policy requires a stronger institutional mandate and a solid conceptual basis which still appears to be wanting. Voters in the EU are sceptical about the benefits of free migration: as a result, the prevalent approach is restrictive. This approach favours irregular immigration and consequently low-skill immigration. A harmonised approach to welcome high-skill immigration would make good economic sense and more harmonisation regarding the regularisation of irregular migrants (who enjoy de facto intra-EU mobility in the Schengen area) is also needed.

7. Energy policy
The EU oversees the internal energy market and is responsible for climate change policies, while the member states still deal with security of supply and their domestic energy mix.

The Commission now proposes to include security of supply in the common EU energy framework.

This is not easy to achieve, given the link with foreign policy aspects, the asymmetry in import dependency among member states, the preferences of member states for a certain energy mix, the member states competitive position in world markets, the different weight and role played by the member states in this field.

So far, the external relation proposals are not sufficiently developed to convince member states that they can safely abandon pursuit of their strategic external energy interests to the supranational level. A consistent alignment will occur when new and renewable fuels gain a more prominent place in the EU energy mix. The fact that member states are more willing to speak with one voice in climate change policy matters offers the prospect of future cooperation in all energy matters.

After the seven areas of foreign economic policy, two studies examine its coherence, in particular in terms of European governance.

The first report, signed by the editor, examines three items on the European agenda.
1.Global agenda. This level has to deal with three multilateral institutions - the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank - and with the need to adjust the EU representation in accordance with its declining relative demographic and economic weight. On this level the EU sometimes exercises world leadership (trade, environment), in other cases has a secondary role. The challenge is one of effectiveness and calls for significant reforms of internal governance and external representation.
2.Transatlantic agenda. Here the EU’s effectiveness in external regulatory matters varies (excellent in competition policy, weak in external financial market policy) and, in general, there is a lack of strategic perspective.
3.Regional agenda. Surprisingly this is the level on which the EU is least effective, with the enlargement of the only successful neighbourhood policy. The EU has little or no common approach in two crucial areas on this front: migration policy and energy policy.

Current arrangements for Europe’s foreign economic policy, conclude Coeuré and Pisani Ferry in their report, are ‘both complex and evolving, their efficiency is questionable and the choice of governance models are inherited from history rather than based on efficiency criteria’.

Clearly a key point is the governance and the level of delegation and representation within the EU. The authors argue that there is no scope to extend unconditional delegation to other fields except those (competition and monetary authority) where authority is already delegated, but they propose conditional delegation (coordination appears weak on efficiency and legal grounds) to the Commission, with the length of the term and the kind of remit given depending on the field.

For areas where foreign policy dimension prevails (energy and migration) and consequently member states are more reluctant to cede sovereignty, one solution would be to delegate to the new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, as envisaged by the draft Constitutional Treaty. The same template could be repeated for economic and monetary affairs with a High Representative for Economic and Financial Affairs who, being a member of both the Council and the Commission, would be able to represent the euro.

The changes suggested appear crucial if Europe is to wake up to its responsibilities and respond effectively to the challenges ahead. The best answer to the recent international financial crisis lies in a joint response from Europe. Europe has to overcome its fragmented status and strengthen its unity: speaking with one voice in foreign economic policy, strengthening the supervision powers of the ECB and with a unified anti-crisis plan, linked to a set of national plans.

In this perspective a strong and effective leadership is crucial. The proposals suggested in the book about the powers delegated to a High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy run the risk of raising difficulties in the coordination with the President of the Council, the strong political figure envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty (while in the book the Commission is suggested as a possible delegate of power, giving de facto great importance to its President). The stability of the term envisaged in the Lisbon Treaty for the President of the Council is extremely important, but the experience of the recent Sarkozy presidency shows the importance of having a (strong) president who is in charge (and not when his mandate has expired).

Federalism and International Democracy in Latin America and the World
Fernando Iglesias, M.P. Republica Argentina, Executive Secretary of Democratia Global (Movimento pro Uniòn Global latinoamericana y el Parliamento Global) and member of the WFM Council

How do you perceive the blocks and stoppages that have occurred since 2005 in the process of political unification of Europe, and how can they be got over?

After the French and the Dutch “no”, I think that the European unification process is not definitely blocked but it is only one phase in the process. For many historical reasons Europe was built from top to bottom, thanks to the efforts and decisions of some remarkable statesmen, such as Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, Alcide de Gasperi or Konrad Adenauer. Now the challenge for those who love Europe and are eager to achieve a complete federal union is, as soon as possible, to bridge the gap between the citizens and European institutions. In my opinion, from now on the process of European unification must entail the participation of the citizens, otherwise it is bound to fail.
Such is the challenge for European federalists, in the best tradition of Altiero Spinelli (whose Ventotene Manifesto has just been published in Spanish). The outcome of the process should be a continental referendum in which the will of every European citizen will have the same weight, without conditioning from the governments nor any possibility of blocking the decisions of a majority of states and citizens by some kind of national right of veto.
I think that such a referendum should lead to the exclusion from the common market and from the benefit of European funds for the countries whose citizens would be opposed to the process of political unification, for it is not acceptable that a country such as Ireland, which has received extraordinary benefits from its adhesion to the EU, becomes an opponent to unification.

What about the attempts towards regional unification in Latin America?

There are (and there have been) too many initiatives but little clarity and few actual results. Today we have, first, the Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Chile and Venezuela as observers). It is basically an economic union, but after more than twenty years in existence there is no unified common market, no common tariff, no common currency. Mercosur is especially weak in its institutions. Its Parliament is not elected directly and has no legislative power; the conflict between Argentina and Uruguay about the cellulose producing installations on their border has been a perfect demonstration of the incapacity of Mercosur to establish an environmental legislation and negotiate a rational solution to the problem.
On the other hand we have the “Communidad Andina de Naciones” (CAN) which includes the states lying between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru). The situation inside the CAN is even worse than in Mercosur, and even the Venezuela of Augusto Chavez has got out of it. Finally, on the political side there exists a Latino American Parliament, the Parlatino, in which all the states from Mexico to Argentina are represented, which deals with political and environmental issues and the rights of man; it has only a consultative role and is not directly elected.
The old promoters of a process of regional unification have reached a dead-end. Fortunately there is a new initiative, the “Uniòn de Naciones Sudamericanas” (UNASUR) launched a few months ago under the leadership of Brazil and which aims at the unification of all the countries of South America. As for Mexico, it has decided to join the North American Free Trade Agreement. I hope that the Brazilian intentions will be firm and that Argentina, which is the second important nation in this context, will change its nationalistic and isolationist habits, and that should lead to the success of this new initiative.

What stepping stones and methods could allow us to progress towards the objective of a Parliamentary Assembly of the United Nations (UNPA) to which you are closely associated? How could it favour or boost international democracy? And, finally, do you have new proposals to submit to federalists?

Certainly it is a fundamental issue; but the ways and means to a world-wide institution of democracy are infinite and unknown. Perhaps we may achieve it through the extensions of continental and regional democracies on the model of the EU, but we cannot exclude a priori that a multipolar world split into four or five huge continental political units may prove even more dangerous than today’s Pax Americana. In my opinion, in this context two complementary strategies should be developed. An institutional strategy from the top to the base (top down) and a strategy of popular participation starting from the base (bottom up). In the first case I believe that the best current initiative is the campaign for the creation of a UNPA that is being developed by the coordinated actions of the Committee for a Democratic United Nations, the World Federalist Movement and other NGOs in the whole world, including Democracia Global in Argentina. Already more than 500 representatives or deputies of over eighty-four countries have signed the petition for UNPA, and the campaign is just starting. The second stage will be the approval of the petition by a majority of national or regional parliaments in the world. In Argentina we made a start in this direction; the Canadian Parliament, the European Parliament, the Parliament of the African Union have approved the principle of a UNPA, the Commission of political affairs of the Latino American Parliament has equally unanimously adopted my proposal on this subject. Mr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former General Secretary of the UN will present the petition to the present Secretary General within two or three years as we hope and the General Assembly will then discuss it and will, it is hoped, decide the creation of the UNPA. The Security Council or its members will not be able to oppose a veto, the UNPA being, according to the charter of the UN, established by the General Assembly, and only by the authority of the General Assembly. If we reach this point we shall be for the World at the level achieved by the European Parliament in the fifties with the creation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). There will be a non-permanent parliamentary advisory group designated by national Parliaments which will deal exclusively with world issues, such as global warming, nuclear dissemination and even the democratic reform of the UN, etc.: all the problems that national states and existing international institutions and national states are totally incapable of solving.
At the same time we must create a planetary mobilization from the base to the top which will permit to avoid the error which has been committed in the process of creation of the EU, that is to say the tremendous abyss which now separates citizens from institutions. I think that there are many initiatives on global questions which are of utmost importance for the life and subsistence of world citizens: peace, ecology, international financial stability, the fight against pandemics and extreme poverty. There are, too, non-governmental actors such as NGOs and private citizens who fight against the plundering and depletion of the planet resources. Finally we have the extraordinary experience, even though it is very limited, of the World Social Forum. It is the reason why I proposed at the Porto Alegre WSF the creation of a yearly Forum of World Democracy, meeting successively in various cities of the world, where the main political leaders of the world, the organizations of the world civil societies and interested intellectuals could openly debate under the eyes of the citizens of the world the necessity to “globalize democracy and democratize the globe” and discuss and evaluate adequate strategies with the participation, for example, of Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, Michael Gorbachev, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Felipe Gonzales, Ricardo Lagos, etc.; representatives of Green Peace, Amnesty International, Transparency, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, etc. and also Jürgen Habermas, David Held, Edgar Morin, George Monbiot, etc. who would converse under the eyes of BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, etc.
The complementary effects of the setting up of the UNPA, the democratic development of regional organizations, the active mobilization of the citizens of the world could create an impulse, a momentum towards the realization of a more peaceful, just and democratic world-order.

What do you think of the Return Directive recently adopted by the European Union? What can we think of the climate in many countries of the EU concerning this problematic and, according to you, what is its negative impact on the relations between Latin America and the EU?

The question of extra-community people is, in my opinion, one of the central problems of modern politics. The attitude of each human community towards its “foreigners” is the best definition of what level of civilization a people, a country, a continent may have succeeded in developing. For this reason the criminalization of illegal immigration is perhaps the most erroneous and mistaken, anti-humanitarian policy of the history of the EU. Fortunately I have also heard Europeans speak of the “Directive of shame”, which means that there still exist in Europe progressive and democratic forces that repudiate it.
Europe was born on the principles of the universal and equal rights of man, but also on the idea of the abolition of frontiers. Indeed the “Directive of shame” is entirely contrary to the best traditions of a United Europe and its Founding Fathers.
During the most difficult periods of European history, Latin America has been a place of asylum for European refugees. In my own country, Argentina, many Spanish Republicans after the Civil War, many anti-fascist Italians, many French people fleeing from the occupation, or as is less known, many anti-nazi Germans, could find safety and work. Then you can imagine their reaction and the reaction of their sons and grand-children when they heard that Europe, which was peacefully united in democracy after the war, had taken the decision that an immigrant, even illegal, was a criminal. It is in this context that the Parliament of Mercosur and the Parlatino, which represent all the people from Mexico to Argentina, have expressed their rejection of the “Return Directive” and appealed to the best democratic traditions of Europe to demand its abrogation.