History had warned us. Severe economic crises lead to unemployment and impoverishment, which create social unrest, resulting in violent political imbalances or fractures. The financial and then economic crises that have hit Europe follow this pattern.
In May 2012, the two traditional left and right parties, which had shared power since 1975 in Greece, were bypassed on the far left and especially on the far right by parties promising a strategy of political disorder, displaying their contempt for democracy.
On February 24 and 25, 2013, Italy followed suit. This is dreadful news for the peninsula, and it’s a formidable wake-up call for Europe.
After a few months of respite, the EU thus sees a dangerous political crisis entering through the front door. It follows, in the eurozone’s third-largest economy, an economic collapse of the continent, after multiple attacks on the euro due to severe public deficits. The shock is extremely serious, as it demands a reconsideration.
The first lesson is that if austerity seems essential to the recovery of public finances in southern countries, its implementation makes its citizens nauseous, like children used to regurgitate cod liver oil. Austerity as the only remedy could end up eroding the European system. Not that austerity should be abandoned, but it must be accompanied by a future.
The second lesson is that there is no apparent enthusiasm from the populations if there is not an exceptional effort in investment in jobs of tomorrow, especially aimed at young people, who are the first major sacrifices of a construction that was intended for them.
From this perspective, the proposed budgetary perspectives for 2014-2020 are dramatically lacking. Where are the own resources that should have been sufficiently comfortable to generate a salutary European recovery? Where are the financial allocations credible enough on a global scale for Europe to become the continent of research in biotechnology, nanotechnology, cognitive work, and the digital industry?
But two even more significant lessons resonate harshly in our ears:
Fifteen months before the European elections, it is essential that the Heads of State and Government stop playing cat and mouse; that they open the fiscal dossier of companies and the social dossier of European workers. Both perceive the building of the continent more as a capitalistic conspiracy than as a promise of the much-discussed popular well-being. We must absolutely initiate a European policy that addresses the famous “labor factor,” while financial capital has been accompanied for decades. We cannot build Europe despite those who produce its wealth, and even less against them.
Furthermore, it is no longer tolerable to govern Europe based on national interests, nor to speak of Europe in hushed tones as if it were an adultery insulting the national sovereignty of the member countries.
Let us not underestimate the Greek and Italian political upheavals, not to mention those creeping in Portugal and Spain, notably. All rulers and responsible parties know with certainty that the EU member countries are at risk of becoming cantons in globalization if they do not unite within a simplified but governed European construction.
To the Beppe Grillos, who flourish a little everywhere without his caustic humor, we must respond with a simple democratic project that says things openly and does not remain in the middle of the stream.
This continent will collapse, its forces will scatter, and we will become vassals if we do not urgently organize at least a political government dedicated to a few sovereign questions that condition our near future. Otherwise, I fear, this future will fall into the hands of dangerous demagogues who are already offering themselves everywhere in Europe, showcasing and establishing storefronts. The phrase is well-known: “[People] who do not know their history are doomed to relive it.”
Jean-Marie CAVADA, Member of the European Parliament, President of the European Movement-France
