Let’s free the EU from corruption

In little over a year, in May 2014, we will vote for a new European Parliament. It will be a date that is unusual for Italians in particular. That is because the European troika (ECB, European Commission, International Monetary Fund) has a bigger impact on our lives than ever was the case in the past. It is because its anti-crisis medicines are being challenged everywhere by people, even shaking the confidence of the doctor that is applying them with the greatest passion. On September 22, the Germans will go to the ballot box and may reward an anti-European party – Alternative for Germany – that came into being last February. The parties will need to put a stop to the lies that are being put about as to the possibility of making Angela Merkel “yield”. Especially in Italy, they will need to stop the betrayal of voters and citizens. Finally and for the first time, if they dare, they will be able to name a president of the European Commission. That is in the treaties.

The reason we talk of lies is that no government is in a position to bend Berlin to its will with exclusively economic arguments that have been peddled up until now: a bit less austerity, a bit of growth, some amnesty. Convinced as it is that it is up to the markets and nothing else to discipline us, Berlin will make a move only if politics prevails over economic arguments that have degenerated into dogmas. Governments, parties and citizens will stake out clear visions on what another Europe must look like: not the current one with its minimal resources and rushing into 18th Century power struggles.

The EU today looks like a corrupt church, needing a protestant schism: a reform of its credo and its vocabulary. It needs a plan with specific points (Martin Luther had 95 theses). The economic papacy is being subverted and political faith is taking precedence. Only in this way will a dominant religion break through and Berlin will have to choose: either a German Europe or a European Germany or hegemony or parity between EU member states. It has always had to choose such this path: Europe, as Adenauer said in 1958, “must not be left to the economists”.

* Read the article here.