Parliament, knock once

In what kind of Europe and in which conditions does Italy want to stay in? The euro is just twelve years old and its sovereign debt crisis is undermining the entire European construction. Is it possible that politics and Parliament that were called to convert into laws commitments made by our Country at an international level, do not look beyond the "yes to the ICI, no to the ICI" or the "yes to the tax on private wealth, no to the tax on private wealth" and so on for the entire package of measures the Monti government has in the pipeline?

Not that it is easy for Italy, a "founding" Country of Europe, to come out of the hole it got itself into (and in was pushed into): once established, rightly or wrongly, that the destiny of the single currency depends on Rome, we were placed under special surveillance by the entire world.
But this does not justify that politics remains essentially silent on how the Europe's governance is taking shape (in an opaque way) and on the fundamental choices that regard the euro.

On the contrary, this should represent the moment of maximum effort, along the lines of the "government of national commitment" that gained a crushing parliamentary approval, to make everyone understand, first of all Italian citizens, that we are approaching decisive choices for our future. The more we prove to know how to react in a positive way in Italy, the more we will have contributed to saving the euro. We have no alternatives. We need a transparent parliamentary debate instead of specious squabbles on this or that point that this or that group of constituents likes or does not like.

We would like to know how appreciated or not appreciated the Merkel-Sarkozy method is, if we approve a more stringent stability Pact not through a revision of the Treaties but through a network of variable geometry inter-governmental agreements. If and to what extent are we willing to give up further parts of our national sovereignty while in Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, as was established by the Constitutional Court, cannot take a step without the approval of the Bundestag. We would like to know if we want, or if we necessarily have to accept, a Europe that is driven by Germany. If we have to put our foot down on a European Central Bank that looks more like the Fed in the United States. We would like to know to what extent (and with which mandate) the crushing majority that promoted the Monti government supports the prime minister, who not by chance asked Parliament "not for a blind trust, but for a vigilant trust", ahead of the European summit on December 8th. It would be really great to go to that appointment backed by a broad and net political consensus. Our horizon is an all-around euro-system and we would like to talk about it without taboos that blow away every alternative, including that of a two-track euro. We would like to understand what Italian politics thinks after the decision by Brussels to defer Italy to the Court of Justice for the "golden share" that the Treasury has for strategic companies, which are "national champions". We are speaking of Eni, Enel, and Finmeccanica that at current market values, in no time, can be taken over at ridiculous prices. The Government does not have much time to respond and one can understand well on what type of fine balance it must move on between the market and the safeguard of national interests.

Nothing would be healthier than a full immersion by our Parliament in Europe. After all, we are Europe and we are the euro; for many years the debate on national interests went from easy Euroscepticism (like the squabble on the diameter of an onion) to a fideistic and acritical Europeanism that produced quite a few problems. The real confrontations were few and random.

Things were different in December of 1978 when the Chamber of Deputies discussed the entry in the new European Monetary System. The "national solidarity" government of the time headed by Giulio Andreotti presented the plan for the immediate entry in the EMS; the PCI (the Communist Party) of Enrico Berlinguer was against it and shared the technical reserves of the Bank of Italy headed by Paolo Baffi. The PRI (the Republican Party) headed by Ugo La Malfa was in favor and the independent left wing was divided between Luigi Spaventa (who was against) and one of the fathers of the "Ventotene Manifesto", Altiero Spinelli (in favor) along with Marco Pannella. Also Giorgio Napolitano, then in the PCI, intervened: he was in favor of a "not immediate entry" and explained his doctrine that was between the defense of national interests and the commitment to re-launch European integration.

It was a great political and technical debate while German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt imposed his conditions, Great Britain took a step back, and Greece, Portugal and Spain asked to enter the European Community. And yet again history repeats itself. But at the end of 2011 Italy is in a much more difficult (not to say dramatic) situation and it finds itself in front of choices that are even more demanding. The situation would deserve, to say the least, a clear and rigorous political debate like the one that brought to the entry in the EMS.

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