Thirty years have passed since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, on 7 February 1992. In fact the last major institutional stage of the European Union, elaborated at the time in the framework of a favorable political situation also thanks to the decisive impetus of the Italian presidency of the European Council between July and December 1990. After the fall of the Wall, the economic and political history of Europe was based entirely on that understanding. In the coming months, the reform of the Stability Pact is on the agenda, now rendered inadequate by two years of the pandemic and by the overcoming of all the current parameters of EU public finance.
Jacques Ziller, president of the Societas Iuris Publici Europaei, the association of European scholars of public law, was a professor at the University of Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne. “My generation lived through the golden age of European integration, even though we thought the Berlin Wall would last forever. Maastricht gave centrality to the European Parliament for the first time and laid the foundations of today's economic union and single currency. Today, unfortunately, there are not all the political conditions for another Maastricht».
At what juncture had the Maastricht agreement been reached?
«The powerful political push came at least from the mid-80s, from the climate of pro-European enthusiasm following the entry of Spain and Portugal. Maastricht was not only the inevitable political result after the fall of the Wall, it was a set of positive factors of convergence. For example, an important role was played by the strategies of John Major's English Conservatives. In fact, even among them there was a pro-European component».
The revision of the Stability Pact is the next major appointment for the Union. Is there room for a pro-European public finance reform?
«At the time of Maastricht some public finance numbers were chosen, I would almost say "randomly". With the single currency they were institutionalized and made sacred. The "German side" will perhaps no longer be an obstacle, the chancellor Olaf Scholz himself could be the keystone of a reform in an open-minded sense. With Bruno Le Maire he has demonstrated in the last two years a long-term vision of European interests ».
So will there be “more Europe” after the pandemic?
“There are some favorable conditions on the Continent. The Italian government is today highly appreciated and respected. The attitude of Prime Minister Rutte and the Netherlands is not the same as two years ago. Austria also has a different government. But above all it will be the great agreement between Macron, Scholz and Draghi that could lead to a strategic revision of the rules on the deficit and debt".
After an unhappy interlude in bilateral relations between France and Italy, the Rome-Paris axis, on the direct line between Emmanuel Macron and Mario Draghi, seems intent on pushing for integration.
«In fact, Brexit has changed the scenarios. Until 2016, four strong countries in Europe faced each other and Italy was the weakest part of these. Now there are three great powers left, Germany, France and Italy. The Rome-Paris axis takes us back to the situation of 70 years ago, when Franco-Italian initiatives guided the development of the Union. Macron is more the heir of the French Christian Democrats of the time, such as Monnet and Schuman, than of the Gaullists".
The other great pact that governs Europe is that between France and Germany. Will the chapter on austerity finally close with the Social Democrat Scholz in the Federal Chancellery despite rising inflation?
«The Scholz government could opt for an integrationist policy on the model of Helmut Kohl. The Germans have the habit of drafting a serious government contract and the one signed with the Liberals and the Greens is much more pro-European than those of the recent past».
The establishment of a European debt agency is on the agenda. But without politics, progress in the economy is risky, the history of the Union teaches this.
«In the pandemic we have applied extraordinary exceptionality clauses. To go further, reform of the Treaties would be needed. But any government, even that of Malta, could block the work. More than a year passed from the negotiations to the signatures, not counting the uncertainty of possible referendums. And ultimately there could be a blockage by the national constitutional courts, I am thinking above all of Germany".
Once the painful chapter of Brexit has been overcome, will Eastern Europe, the so-called Visegrad block, represent the future power of interdiction in political integration?
«There are “two Easts”, the first is the one within the Union, represented by the Eurosceptic fronts of Poland and Hungary. In Budapest we vote in May, we'll see what happens. And then there is the second East, outside the Union, that of Putin's Russia. The crisis on the Ukrainian front could lead to an unexpected result: pushing for a greater demand for integration, as happened from 1950 to 1990 with the Cold War. Outside the Union, Ukraine could still become a "buffer state" like Finland until the fall of the Wall. In any case, the fear that runs along that very long border between Russia and Poland will bring the latter closer to Europe very soon".
