Can you be “Euro-delusi” and love Europe the same? Certainly. Indeed, precisely the combination of passion and bitterness, which sails certain analysis, demonstrates how constructive criticisms are an essential contribution, to make a future of hope to our common home. If, then, to reflect on the ailments of the Union is precisely an employee, then the thing becomes intriguing, because the authority of the source gives such a “weight” to the judgments expressed as to make them practically unassailable.
This is what Antonio Arena, Messina, former official of the European Parliament didrealizing a volume that summarizes the history of the EU. With an accortness, however: the passages are marked and illustrated in all details, reserving more in -depth reflections for the “crisis areas”, determined by “structural” defects. In short, from the original sins that the union has been carrying out, since its inception and that, with the going of time, instead of disappearing, they have instead exacerbated. “Finis Europae?” (Oaks Editrice) is the title of the Masterpiece, with a bolt that is all a program, but which must be reinterpreted: “Europe was not born”, where the last word clearly refers to the Atlantic alliance.
Considered that The book was written last autumnthe author in fact hopes for greater political, economic, military and cultural independence from the United States. And this regardless of the current Trump presidency. However, the strong reference to the values shared with America also underlines the “asymmetry” of interests, which in certain circumstances can lead to comparison. But The main merit of Arena is to disassemble and reassemble, widespread, all the mechanisms of the institutional functioning of the Union.
Like a meticulous Swiss watchmaker, the former official highlights its complexity. Indeed, the real cumbersomeness, which contributes to a demeaning scarce in the level of governance. The book thus fixes some “turning points” that explain vices (many) and virtues of community development.
First of all, the fact that the European Union was built on a mercantile soul And that only after he was arranged, above, a political architecture. The enlargement, supported by a “scale” strategy (bigger = stronger), then ended up triggering a tumultuous racing to enlarge, which has put the convergence criteria in crisis. And he requested, exponentially, increasingly demanding sums for social stabilization policies.
The perverse equation was: more money, more bureaucracy. And again, like a mantra, more and more bureaucracy and more money. A gigantic consensus factory, which has done nothing but reproduce the old national models, amplifying them. The shopping control also means control of political addresses, at the continental level. Here the much feared “national subjection” expelled from the door returned from the window.
The most important countries, those that indirectly control expenditure thanks to their contractual power, that is France and Germany, in this sense, have never pursued a genuinely Europeanist strategy. And the litmus test of such an institutional ambiguity is reflected by the organization of foreign policy itself and that of defense of the blockade.
Beyond the multiplication of prolissy and restricted leaders, the truth is that there is no homogeneous foreign policy line. The situation is even more sad in the military sector. Atavics jealousies have not allowed the construction of a European army so far. And even now, while discussing to launch a common and coordinated effort, there are countries, such as Germany, which for reasons mainly of internal policy are ready to spend up to 1000 billion euros for rearmament. Flock to all the others.