Shared sovereignty is better than non-existent sovereignty, but if the European Union is to overcome the challenges of the future, it must change. Mario Draghi arrives in Bologna with a strong message: the EU has been a political and economic success, but after ten critical years Brussels must find the courage to evolve. "The European Union wanted to create a sovereign where there was none", he says, but the external challenges to his existence are "increasingly threatening". To face them, it is necessary to recover unity of vision and action, "it is not just a wish, but an aspiration based on political and economic expediency". Less than a year before the end of his mandate, the president of the ECB chooses the Aula Magna of Santa Lucia for a political speech, where the Alma Mater awards him an honorary degree in law. “The European Union – he explains – is the institutional construction which in many areas has allowed the Member States to be sovereign. It is a shared sovereignty, preferable to a non-existent one. It is a complementary sovereignty to that exercised by individual nation states in other areas. It is a sovereignty that the Europeans like”. Outside of it, there is only a misunderstood independence. The president does not mention it, but thoughts inevitably turn to Brexit.
The audience welcomes him with an ovation, he is the rock star of the academic world and in the first rows to applaud him are, among others, Romano Prodi, Augusto Barbera, Angelo Tantazzi, Filippo Cavazzuti. “So many friends of a lifetime, I smile at them and they smile at me”. While he talks a small group of demonstrators protest against the institutions of Brussels and Frankfurt along the streets of the city centre. Yet Draghi also thinks of them: “We need to respond to the perception that” the European Union “lacks equity: between countries and social classes. It is necessary to feel, first of all, then to act and explain. Therefore, unity, fairness and above all a method of doing politics in Europe”. The last ten years "have dramatically highlighted the shortcomings of national policies and the need for developments in cooperation within the Union and outside it".
Draghi warns against various populist movements, but also against transversal resistance to change. We must fear the resurgence of “ideas according to which the prosperity of some cannot be achieved without the misery of others; international or supranational organizations lose interest as places of negotiation and guidance for compromise solutions; the affirmation of the self, of identity, becomes the first requirement of any policy. In this world, freedom and peace become dispensable accessories when necessary. But if you want these values to remain essential, foundational, the path is another: adapt existing institutions to change. An adaptation that has hitherto been resisted because the inevitable national political difficulties always seemed to outweigh its necessity. This “has generated uncertainty about the institutions' ability to respond to events and has nourished the voice of those that these institutions want to overthrow. There must be no misunderstandings: this adaptation will have to be as profound as the phenomena that have revealed the fragility of the existing order and as vast as the dimensions of a geopolitical order which is changing in a direction not favorable to Europe”.
European citizens have much more faith in the economic benefits of the area (75% are in favor of the euro and monetary union and 71% are in favor of the common commercial policy), than in the institutions (42%; better of the appreciation reserved for national parliaments, 32%). The numbers prove that together the EU counts for more: it is 16,5% of world GDP (second only to China); 15% of world trade (against 11% in the USA); it is the most important trading partner of 80 countries (the USA is of 20). With its weight it protects jobs, products, consumers and stems the risk that globalization is just a race to the bottom. To march united, however, we need to cooperate and this is difficult for those who govern to do and to explain to those who are governed.
“In its history – recalls Draghi – the European Union has followed two methods of cooperation. In some cases, community institutions have been created to which executive power has been conferred, such as, for example, in the case of the Commission for what concerns commercial policies or the ECB for monetary policy. In other cases, such as fiscal policy or structural reforms, national governments hold executive powerlinked together by common rules. However, we must ask ourselves how successful this choice was. In cases where executive power has been conferred on Community institutions, the result has been positive. Instead, in areas of cooperation based on common rules, the judgment is less positive”.
Why did things done one way go better than the other? Because the institutions "have flexibility in pursuing their objectives", while "the rules cannot be changed quickly in the face of unexpected circumstances". So it's time to change, but to do so you need seriousness and mediation. “The move from rules to institution-building requires trust between countries, based on the one hand on rigorous observance of existing rules, on the other ability of governments to reach satisfactory compromises, when circumstances require flexibility”. Then you need to be able to explain what you are doing to your own citizens. Basically there is a need for Politics, precisely the one with a capital P.
Perhaps for this reason, to give his words an even higher value, Draghi finally relies on a speech by Benedict XVI from 38 years ago: “Being sober and doing what is possible, and not claiming with a burning heart the impossible, has always been difficult; the voice of reason is never as loud as an irrational cry… But the truth is that political morality consists precisely in resisting the seduction of big words… The moralism of adventure is not moral… Not the absence of any compromise, but compromise itself is the true morality of political activity”.
