Optimism is overflowing, and from the Berlaymont Palace in Brussels (which houses the offices of the European Commission) it has spread to the point of touching the geometric and gleaming figures of the complex of buildings on the outskirts of Strasbourg where the European Parliament moves once a month. And, without a doubt, the announcement of investments of 315 billion euros over the next three years in Europe conveys a certain dose of optimism to the listener. Especially when, after six years of devastating crisis, the real economy basically marks time and the hunger for work is magnified. A context in which the proposals for change are captivating and certainly well presented. Like yesterday in the plenary session of the European Parliament, in front of over 700 deputies and a large number of journalists who came en masse to Strasbourg to listen, twenty-four hours earlier in that same hemicycle, to Pope Francis' appeal to the Europeans to recover the great ideals that more than half a century ago gave life to that first nucleus of states which grew to become the current European Union.
"Today Europe is turning the page", guarantees Jean-Claude Juncker less than a month after taking office at the helm of the European Executive. And – with the announcement of the creation, by the Commission itself and the EIB, of a European Fund for strategic investments (operational from next June) – it sends a message “to all Europeans and to the rest of the world”. A message that says: "Europe is coming back, the past is behind us, investing means looking towards the future!". A Europe which – of course – must invest to fill the enormous gap in this field which has accumulated since the beginning of the crisis with respect to other economically more advanced areas. But how, with what resources, if in that same period the ratio between public debt and gross domestic product shot up from 60% to 90% on average for the member countries? And, moreover, will those three hundred billion and more to which Juncker has been referring for months be sufficient to bring about the turning point (in terms of robust growth of the real economy and rapid and substantial increase in employment) that everyone hopes for?
The new president of the Commission replies no, that with a change of pace, and also of mentality, the challenge can be overcome. An opinion shared by one of his deputies who substantially oversees all the economic and financial departments, the young and determined ex-prime minister of Finland Jyrki Katainen, the "bogeyman" of the governments of the most indebted member countries (including, as we know, there is Italy). However, today it accepts and supports Juncker's proposal not to take into account, in calculating the debt-GDP ratio, the expenditure of a State to help increase the newly created Fund, the EFSI. An innovation that Italy, like France today, has already been soliciting since the days of the Monti government, but which until now had not been accepted by Brussels.
An innovation, this, on which Juncker and his team will play their "big bet" on the fate of Europe. A region of the world where, say the experts and confirm the European commissioners, an immense amount of liquid money circulates. Which could be usefully directed towards investments but which is largely frozen in the bank waiting for safer times to invest. Since the factor that most holds back investors is a rather heightened perception of risk, Juncker argues. Which, to restart trust, proposes the exchange between grants and guarantees. “This is the key to restoring the attractiveness of private investment”, is his firm opinion. Because – someone could perhaps add – in this historical phase there is not much public capital to be allocated to investments. And then the mechanism devised by the President of the Commission with the contribution – it is easy to imagine – of the “hawk” Katainen could have a concrete prospect of success.
This is the already mentioned mechanism of replacing European subsidies with guarantees. A system that clarifies the reason for the entry into the field of the European Investment Bank. Its president, the German Werner Hoyer, not for nothing has taken part in more than one of the last European Councils. And who in Strasbourg yesterday was alongside Juncker and Katainen to illustrate to the deputies the Commission proposal which envisages the involvement of the credit institution participated by the European institutions which has enjoyed for years the triple A rating of the rating agencies, with a long experience on medium and long-term loans. Necessary presence since the loans that will be disbursed will largely be long-term.
But in order for the implementation of this mechanism to be successful, it is necessary – Juncker himself says it bluntly – that the Member States put in place a robust commitment by helping to strengthen the financial endowment of the new Fund. But above all – and here comes the difficult part – that they commit themselves deeply and quickly to lighten the burden of bureaucratic burdens and unify the regulations at European level.
“We must all commit ourselves to reviving the community method by abandoning the logic of agreements between the member states”, is the opinion strongly underlined by Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament. This is an institution whose weight will become ever more decisive in Europe's choices. Weight which however would risk being nullified if the Member States, or a certain number of them, were to get in the way. Hypothesis most likely desired by the Eurosceptics but which, if it were to materialize, would be devastating for all of Europe.
