“Crisis-justice-democracy for Europe and Latin America”, the project developed by the Interdisciplinary Institute for Relations between Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean (Irelac) in collaboration with the IAI (Istituto Affari Internazionali), the Instituto de Relações Internacionalis of the University of São Paulo and several other academic institutions and think tanks from EU countries organized its third event at the Casa Internazionale delle Donne in Rome. Event opened by the ambassador Ferdinando Nelli Feroci, President of the IAI, who illustrated the basis and aims of the project, arguing that "analyzing the common aspects is not functional to find a single recipe but we could all have an advantage in comparing the respective experiences and learning from each other 'other".
Referring to the European situation, Nell Feroci added that "at the moment, growth is starting up again, albeit with different speeds and growth rates depending on the country, but the consequences of the recent crises are still standing: we have a high level of unemployment in several European countries, poverty remains one of the main problems and the great inequality in the distribution of income is still significantly influencing our societies".
The event brought together experts, journalists and academics from both sides, allowing for a wide-ranging discussion on the respective economic and social crises and on the deviation from democracy and the emergence of populist-nationalist movements. The first to speak was Dimitris Katsikas, professor at the University of Athens, with the task of briefly illustrating ten or more years of the Greek crisis which he himself defined as "the greatest crisis that the developed world has faced" and from which the Greece struggling to get up, also disadvantaged by the policies of Austerity.
The focus then shifted then on Mexico, Brazil e Argentina e Marie Antoinette of the German Lins, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo, wondered how many points in common there actually are between the two fronts for the comparison to be valid. In fact, the crises in Latin America are not recent events as in Europe, but they have been continuous and have taken the form of a loss of credibility of the institutions under various aspects "Perhaps there is something wrong with us Brazilians, we never believe that in the end we'll make it, we'll carry on."
But common points emerge, from the similar economic and social consequences of which the Greek case is one of the main examples, to the restrictions to which political maneuvers are subjected. Why though Latin America is not in one monetary zone however, it is subject to strong restrictions dictated by national priorities.
Preceded by the intervention of Stephan Schlmeister, representative of the Austrian Institute of Economic Research of Vienna with an overview of the birth of the crisis and the evolution of financial capitalism, Franco Passacantando (ex Bank of Italy) has developed the comparison with Latin America to which it has dedicated recent studies and a manual (“Italexit, debt cancellation and parallel currencies: the fatal attraction for the Argentine situation").
"Now" said the former Managing Director of the Bank of Italy "the two majority political forces in the country, Alloy e Five stars they used theArgentina as an example to follow, the Five Star Movement proposed the referendum to leave Europe. Now they have moderated their position, nobody talks about leaving Europe”
And if even if one wanted to follow in Argentina's footsteps, exit the euro and restructure the debt, the differences would probably be a bit too much, as he explained the former Managing Director of Bank of Italy. The amount of Italian debt is higher, and the main holders who would suffer the consequences of this political maneuver are residents, 40% of whom are families.
The reform proposals regarding the currency should instead contemplate that the Italian payment system has characteristics common to the entire European Union, while introducing a new currency would be, to say the least, rather difficult. The last intervention in this regard was by Christian Ghymers, Belgian economist, who continued the analysis between economic problems and possible parallels.
The confrontation between Europe and Latin America then moved on to the causes and effects of the affirmation of the gods populist movements and the first entry was that of Kai Lehmann, from the University of São Paulo, Brazil: “Populism in Latin America is not a recent phenomenon for me, but I could define it as continuous”. In his opinion, the key factors for identifying the populist movement are: the people's need for powerful figures to whom to entrust their will, the tendency to look at the facts "here and now", without forward perspectives, the need to protect yourself from any kind of change and compromise. All these indicators can be found in several Latin American countries: Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala. He echoed him the intervention on the political situation in Brazil and on the prospects in the coming months of Bettina de Souza Guilherme (European Parliamentarian)
Back to Europe, Eleonora Poli, a researcher at the IAI, in turn highlighted that “ Populism is like a box that can be filled with different ideas. So it cannot be said that populism is right or wrong. What most differentiates Europe from Latin America is that populism can be inclusive and exclusive and unfortunately due to the way it has developed in Europe it is exclusive, in the sense that this idea of national identity has been revived and regional versus the rest of the world.” The crises that are affecting Europe are many, as Poli underlined, from the banking one, to the weight of the public debt, to the "security crisis" or the fear of losing one's identity. Inevitably, the tension that has arisen can lead to nationalism. But at this point "we should have learned in our history what the consequences of nationalism are, but we haven't".
Tim Oliver (Director of Research at Brexit Analytics) instead presented his point of view on Brexit to be considered more than a result of racist currents, given that the adhesions to the referendum are multiracial, the expression of the will to escape the restrictions of the European Union in view of the possibility of new agreements, for example with China or the United States .
The last two interventions of the multi-voiced confrontation were that of Nathalie Tocci (Director of the IAI) and that of the Ambassador of Brazil Antonio De Aguiar Patriot, who reiterated how much Brazil constitutes a strategic partner for the European Union and how much it is necessary to take a different position from those countries which are closing in on themselves in favor of a greater cooperation between political forces and academics which involves a benefit for all and does not increase rivalry. Among the objectives to be pursued: the affirmation of gender equality, which has achieved excellent results in Bolivia, the management of the demographic revolution and the migratory flows towards which all countries have responsibility, the fight against terrorism and economic inequalities.
