Five years after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the spark at the origin of the devastating financial fire that reduced the real economy of half the world to ashes and whose last outbreaks (hopefully) have not yet completely extinguished, the politicians and economists continue to question the remedies. And, in the light, for example, of the unstoppable rise in unemployment, there are not a few who wonder whether the measures adopted have contributed to delaying the recovery of economic growth over time.
In this regard, it will be recalled the candid admission of the International Monetary Fund, the body (of which 188 sovereign states are members) which has the extremely delicate task of rushing to the rescue of countries hit by serious financial crises. Which only a few months ago publicly acknowledged, through the mouths of two of its top executives, that it had "wrong therapy" in an attempt to treat some sick countries (including Greece, Portugal, Ireland) with massive doses of austerities linked to the granting of large loans.
Without wanting to go into the merits of the "quarrel" between the supporters of financial rigour, who in Europe are established above all in the North, and the "fans" of the easing of budget constraints, more numerous in the countries of the South, one cannot fail to note that the debate is ancient. But for the past five years it has found and has found nourishment in the statistics which increasingly register signs of a slowdown in economic growth and, on the other side but at a more contained pace, of a consolidation of the public finances.
The debate thus continues to divide economists and tear apart parties. Weakened, the latter, by the increasingly accentuated loss of electoral consensus which are instead directed towards movements that make politics by "rejecting politics". Movements growing in many European countries (Grillo didn't invent anything...) due to the push of discontent: rising taxes, more and more frequent layoffs, jobs that cannot be found, money that is not enough to reach end of the month. That is, the consequences of the crisis, but also the austerity measures taken to deal with it.
A debate that last year saw the return to the European stage of three Great Old Men, who played leading roles on the European political scene in the second half of the last century: Mario Soares, Jacque Delors and Valery Giscard d'Estaing. All three, although belonging to different political families (the first two are socialists, the third is liberal) have not spared criticism of rigorous policies.
"Austerity alone is not enough, since it produces more unemployment and more economic crisis," said Soares, born in 1924, twice prime minister of Portugal, head of state for ten years in a row and finally MEP. “Europe cannot be governed by rules alone, if there is no politics”, ruled Delors, born in 1925, former French minister and then president of the European Commission for a decade. While Giscard d'Estaing, from 1926, president of the Republic in France and then in Brussels president of the European Convention (the assembly that was supposed to write the EU Constitution), proposed a sort of directorate made up of Eurozone countries, with powers of economic "governance" borrowed from the federal model.
In our house, the greatest supporter of financial rigor policies is undoubtedly Mario Monti, an economist "lent" to politics, who implemented them with determination as Prime Minister. Policies which have allowed the deficit to fall below the 3% threshold and which have therefore been decisive for Italy's exit from the European infringement procedure. But which have failed to curb the growth of unemployment, nor the production crisis nor the decline in household consumption.
Phenomena, these, which have also manifested themselves in other EU countries and which are putting a strain on most of the national governments and also the leaders of the European institutions, who are increasingly engaged every day in an attempt to urge the Member States to exercise financial rigor and at the same time to commit to economic growth (but the 2014 budget balances will be lower than this year's... A sort of squaring the circle, a "not only, but also" which at the end of the race risks to displease everyone, an attempt in which many have tried in recent months: in Brussels as in Paris, in London as in Strasbourg, in Madrid as in Rome.
An attempt in which Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, has decided not to engage. Which today, 4 November 2013, flew to Athens to send a message of change that espouses the position (the second) of the Monetary Fund. “The impact of austerity on the economy has been erroneously assessed”, reads an article published in “Repubblica” on November XNUMXst. “Spending cuts have cut growth unexpectedly.”
“Unemployment (particularly youth unemployment), contraction of GDP with direct repercussions on public spending, higher taxes, more difficult access to credit for businesses, political instability: the best cocktail for desperation!” writes the president of the European Parliament. “Too many promises, few results. From now on we will not launch slogans, but we will measure the weight of our requests with concrete actions that can be implemented. Only in this way will we reverse the trend of confidence and lay the foundations for a restart from Southern Europe”, concludes Martin Schulz. Which, in case anyone didn't know, he's German. And then we Italians could reply in his language with a sincere "Vielen Dank, Herr Praesident!" (“Thank you very much, President”).
