This controversy on austerity is now boring and prevents us from understanding more deeply the economic problems and also the different policies that exist between the various countries such as between Italy and Germany for example. Even Matteo Renzi in his reply letter to Eugenio Scalfari on the proposal of the governors of France and Germany to create a new European economy minister, remains more with slogans than with the substance of the problems. Thus everything becomes politics of the Italian courtyard and we see exponents of the Dem left such as Gotor, decisively siding with the proposals of the strong Northern European countries after they have thundered against German austerity for years, for the sole purpose of embarrassing the Government increasingly tight between European diktats and the need to restart the anemic Italian economy.
It is true that in order to proceed with the construction of Europe it will be necessary to combine the single currency with a unitary government of public finances and therefore of the economies. But the question is: what is this European superminister to do? It will have to limit itself to checking the public finances of the individual states with enhanced powers compared to the current commissioners or it will have the availability of resources to implement a real common economic policy by stabilizing the economic cycle, promoting the rebalancing between the various areas of the country (a bit like launching in Italy with the South or in Germany with the Länder of the East), and also developing a homogeneous social policy. Until these problems are clarified, it is useless (or perhaps vaguely blackmailing) to talk about strengthening Brussels' powers over national budgets.
The discourse must no longer be set in favor or against austerity. It must be admitted that those who have spent too much in the past by accumulating a large debt must necessarily tighten their belts. The real problem, however, is to make our German friends understand that the compression of the state budget alone does not achieve the objective of reducing the debt, given that the decline in GDP causes the debt ratio to grow even if it remains stationary. It must be explained that Italy certainly does not believe that the increase in public expenditure can lead to stable growth of the economy, but that it is still necessary to face the length of time required for the reforms to produce the desired effects. It is precisely Europe that has to do its part which, with or without a new minister, should speed up investments and finance them with European bonds. It is also urgent to address the catastrophes that excessive regulation is causing on the financial market with the risk of plunging all of Europe into a new recession. To overcome the current crisis, neither rhetoric nor bureaucratic narrow-mindedness is needed. We need true statesmen capable of looking beyond the day by day.
