For two years now, European countries have been experiencing a war-like, world-changing crisis. The war is not over: nowadays, we prove to be terrib...

For two years now, European countries have been experiencing a war-like, world-changing crisis. The war is not over: nowadays, we prove to be terribly slow in learning what we learnt in 1945. Back then, everyone took part in a marathon, whose finishing line was the reconstruction, also at a personal, inner level. Today we trail along, having inertia or even denial prevailing for years. We have been living as if we were buried under a thick layer of optimism, with the European Union and its climax: the common currency. Disaster, deemed impossible, had not even been taken into consideration.

On the contrary, not only disaster was a concrete possibility, but it was around the corner. Therefore, we need to rise up, in the same way as our fellow post-war Europeans and their leaders (Monnet, Adenauer, De Gasperi, Spinelli) did. Some of them, like Paul Valéry, woke up beforehand, after 1914-18: “We, civilizations, now know that we are mortal. The time of the finite world begins”. We can never forget that from this consciousness and awakening not one, but two things stemmed: Europe and Welfare. The first one was aimed at saying no to nationalisms, the second one was aimed at saying no to punishing recessions that threw desperate peoples into the arms of despotic regimes. Nowadays, we are at a similar crossroads; a first awakening, albeit partial, has begun during the summit held in Brussels on the 8^th and 9^th of December.

The time of the finite world begins with the awareness that the single currency is actually in jeopardy, should it not be flanked by an economic and political union able to link more tightly the Eurozone Member States, and eventually create a really new Constitution; and should governments not dare to tell the truth to their confused, frightened citizens: our national sovereignties are too broken-down and delusory to cope with the global change unveiled by the market chaos. We cannot afford fake kings anymore. We cannot even afford to state, as many citizens driven by a justifiable rage for the requested sacrifices did, that 1% of the global population is to be blamed for the excessive debts. For decades, the voter has legitimized, through its electoral choices, squanderer governments, guardians of privileged castes.

German politicians lied to their citizens as well: the country has been trained to self-discipline thanks to an ancestral mix of order and fear, but Germany itself believed in the unshakable steadiness of the Euro. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung is hard on its élite: “We cannot save the German Euro while giving the European Euro only limited security”.

The culture of stability is a virtue – certainly not an imperialistic one – being disseminated by Berlin all over Europe. However, there has been a lack of awareness of the fact that the little German world is doomed to perish if the Union failed; and that social solidarity is a European public good as well as the stability culture is. German sceptics used to say in the years of the Maastricht Treaty that there could be no Euro without economic and political union. Today we could create that union, but the German élite is sulking, hesitates, behaving as if the Euro was a finishing line instead of a starting point. Chancellor Merkel made an important and very federalist speech in Berlin on February 7^th, proposing a large abandonment of national sovereignties (and the abolition of the liberum veto). But her speech didn’t provoke in Germany a real debate. And it was completely ignored in France, where the most severe obstacle to political union lies, since the creation of the euro by Kohl and Mitterrand. The summit held in Brussels has been negatively assessed by many pro-Europeans, but it could represent a new start. Not for the first time, the more conscious, imaginative governments have decided to isolate London and to try a more consolidated fiscal union, starting from a limited group of countries: the Eurozone member states. The group has been joined meanwhile by other states (25 states have signed as of January).

Their sovereignty diminishes, given that pivotal tasks, including preventive control and sanctions, are delegated to supranational bodies such as the Commission, the European Court of Justice, the European Central Bank (the ECB will act as agent of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), which will evolve, earlier than expected, into the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) on July 2012). Critics of the intergovernmental agreement have been peremptory: the EU-27 would be overridden; there would be conflicts with the Lisbon Treaty. We should bear in mind, however, that Europe has always been improving itself by limited agreements or treaties over the years (Schengen, the single currency). Legal cavils can be overcome.

Another step ahead has been the abandonment in this case – albeit with difficulty – of the unanimity vote (the liberum veto that already once, in 18^th century Poland, killed a country). The ESM Fund will abandon, if needed, the veto right. Sure enough, there are harsh words, such as “automatic sanctions”; however, automatism can be beneficial, at least for no other reason than what Monti called, some time ago, the “excessive deference among Member States”. In a deference regime the controller refrains from judging the controlled, out of fear of being a future controlled himself: they protect each other in this conspiracy of silence. In the new Eurozone treaty, only a qualified majority of Member States will be able to object against automatic sanctions.

Lately, a wave of indignation has been rising against Berlin due to the arrogance of certain behaviours: Volker Kauder, a Christian Democrat member of Parliament and trustworthy aid to Angela Merkel, has stated: “Europe now speaks German!”. Indignation has been useful, and the Social-democrats' insurrection even more. A pro-European sentiment is taking root in the German left; the Italian Democratic Party, the French Socialist Party and the Greens in both countries should support this trend. As a result, Angela Merkel had to wake up from her dogmatic sleep, the dogma consisting in the old theory according to which it s mandatory to put first "one's house in order", and only then put the international cooperation and today's Europe in order. During the days before the European summit of December 2011, apparently the Chancellor understood that nobody can save Europe remaining in isolation. She understood that giving more authority to the Commission, to the Court of Justice, to the ECB is much more effective than the centralizing shouting of a single State.

It is not fortuitous that the ECB, having become a little stronger thanks to the fiscal union wanted by the Eurozone members, has stated that, from now on, it will offer its support to banks for longer periods (three years), accepting such securities as low-quality government bonds. As a matter of fact, by tacit agreement, the ECB is already a lender of last resort, securing cash to banks, thus giving Member States and citizens more breathing space. Helmut Schmidt, in a speech at the Social Democratic Congress held on the 4^th of December, pointed the finger at a couple of European contradictions no longer bearable, not only between national sovereignties and the single currency, but also among the rules established by the Treaty. To give an example, the latter prohibits rescuing Member States at European level. However, this clashes with the principle of subsidiarity, summarised by Schmidt as follows: “When a Member State is not able to cope with its problems by itself, the European Union should take charge”. The German Constitution itself is quite daring about this point: the so-called European Article (no. 23), added after the introduction of the single currency, states that Germany, “in order to realize a united Europe, can delegate sovereignty to it”.

Therefore, it is worth being cautious when Germany is in the dock. Paris, not Berlin, has opposed the reduction or abolition of the veto right, defending by this way its national prerogatives. In Paris, more than in Germany, a European revolution is needed. Many German rigidities, today particularly palpable, have been exacerbated by the French governments over decades. The Socialists are not doing better than Sarkozy. Mr. Hollande, running for the Presidency, has built his own campaign upon the rejection of any European interference. As regards the current President, the interview published in Le Monde on December 13, 2011, is pure hypocrisy: fiscal union is a “great democratic progress” because the power “goes back to the Member States; by now... it does not revolve around the ECB, the Commission and the Stability Pact anymore”. Such lies mislead citizens, as well as the markets.

The new European order is hard on the peoples, in times of deep recession. The world is changing; money and hopes are migrating from the West to the East of the planet. We in the West are going to face not one or two years, but many years of low growth and contraction. This new order would be harder should the idea of Welfare not be saved, together with the Euro. The same could be said if the evils that triggered the crisis (inequalities, privileges, corruption, rating agencies controlled by the lobbies) make a comeback disguised as medications; if Europe does not start thinking about a new, environmentally-friendly model of growth, and if it does not provide itself with adequate means – other than the present, stingy budget – in order to be able to bet on sustainable development and stability in the same time. Papandreou was asking for this; no one has ever listened to him, and Europe has got rid of him as soon as he proposed a referendum on the austerity measures.

The European Parliament elections, due to be held in 2014, will be a decisive test. If the Commission is to have more power, it is then necessary for its President to be elected by the citizens. It is necessary that even the MEPs wake up, claiming a European taxation on financial transactions together with a strict surveillance of banks and the markets. Martin Schulz, the present EP President, has been spurred by Helmut Schmidt to a “revolt of the European Parliament”, and “with urgency, so its voice will be heard”. The creation of a real European agorà, able to beat the ignorance of many and the hypocrisy of a few, is more necessary than ever.