A compass for Europe. The new book by Marco Buti – Corriere.it

Marco Buti was for fifteen years the highest technical “officer” on the command bridge of the economic policy of the European Union. In that period Europe had to face three major crises: the global financial crisis, particularly acute in the Eurozone; the Covid-19 pandemic; the war close to its borders, with the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

To orient his navigation over the years, and to explain it to readers today, Marco Buti has chosen as his compass the well-known prophecy of a founding father of European construction, Jean Monnet: «Europe will be created in crises and will be the sum of the solutions brought to these crises».

Before seeing the original way in which Buti uses Monnet’s prophecy as a compass, I would like to note that this is made up of two distinct predictions, which the history of the following decades has punctually confirmed. However, the prophecy reveals all its power, and relevance, if it is completed with a third prediction, which perhaps Monnet kept in his pen so as not to gloom over those who would have worked fervently on the construction site of European construction. We could say, if we allow ourselves a risky extrapolation of the famous phrase: «Europe will make itself in crises and it will be the sum of the solutions brought to those crises; when Europe does not provide solutions to current or foreseeable crises, it will have to do so later and it will be more difficult”.

The first crisis, the most terrible of all, was the Second World War. Precisely to avoid the repetition of a conflict between Germany and France and in Western Europe in general, the European Coal and Steel Community was created (1951) with the joint control of the instruments that would have allowed rearmament. The indispensable complement had to be equip the Community for a common defense against external threats. In fact, a Treaty for the European Defense Community was soon stipulated, but it was not ratified (1954).

The failure of this project, without a new initiative in a reasonable time – as the unexpressed part of Monnet’s prophecy would have required – has left a very serious void in the construction of Europe. She would only become fully aware of it sixty-eight years later, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Europe is unable to provide adequate military assistance to a neighboring country, except thanks to a very strong dependence on the United States, in a historical phase that sees a renewed aggressiveness of the Russian Federation and perhaps a lower predictability of American foreign policy than to the past. Therefore, Monnet’s prophecy contains in itself a powerful warning, which Europe should never ignore.

In addition to the best compass for navigating the seas, Monnet also makes available the drawings of the “ship Europa” – which he designed and built – in case repairs or improvements are needed. «The problems that our countries are called upon to solve – Monnet affirmed in 1974, but these are words that retain their validity intact – are not the same as in 1950. The method, however, remains the same: transfer of power to common institutions, majority voting and a common approach to finding a solution to problems, are the only answer in our current state of crisis”. These are the features of the Community method of government.

Todaythe European Union is engaged in a new difficult economic policy exercise. Without stemming from a devastating crisis, such as the three crises that Buti analyzes – due to sovereign debts (2008-2012), the pandemic (2020-2022) and the Russian aggression against Ukraine (since February 2022) – the However, the current situation has the potential to drive insidious dividing wedges, alongside some elements that perhaps will instead go in the direction of cohesion, between the various Member States.

I refer to European strategy for competitiveness, as with some emphasis it is called. In reality, it is above all a European response to certain potentially adverse consequences for European industry following the attraction to the United States of European companies, or their production lines, as an effect of measures introduced by the Biden administration in the so-called « Inflation Reduction Act» of 2022.

After extensive consultations with the Member States, the Commission presented a communication to the European Council of 9-10 February 2023, partly inspired by an orientation agreed between France and Germanywhich outlines some guidelines and proposals, subsequently refined for the European Council of 23-24 March.

It will be inevitable, and even appropriate, for the Member States to define their respective positions in a sort of continuum (temporal and content), between measures for competitiveness and other fundamental ones building blocks of European economic policy, which is always evolving: the reform of economic governance, primarily of the Stability and Growth Pact; first evaluations on the Next Generation Eu to the test of the facts and hypotheses on the post-Ngeu period; strategy for European public goods, in the multiannual financial framework.

I don’t want to involve Marco Buti in the perilous exercise of applying, even this time ex antethe triple «Monnet compatibility test» which he theorized (and which, without asking his permission, I will rename «Monnet-Buti compatibility test») to the complex set of decisions on the broadened economic governance.

In my opinion, the test is like a compass, of great preventive utility, both for the Member States and for the European institutions; both by what it encourages to pursue, and by the alarms it flashes. Without going into a degree of detail that would be too daring at this stage, I would feel like saying that, in order for all the decisions in the pipeline to satisfy the triple Monnet-Buti testit must be based on the following three criteria:

TO) State aid route it would cause a double fragmentation: real (of the single market) and financial (according to the “fiscal space” of the various states). Therefore, any possible relaxation on the matter must be targeted, well circumscribed and clearly temporary, with a fixed deadline.

B) National measures must go hand in hand with common tools; these must not be of financial transfers to Member States, but of supply of European public goodswhich individual states are unable to produce individually.

C) The ability to coalition building is related to European credentials of individual member states and governments, which, in turn, imply a coherent political contract, not opportunistic support.

If the three criteria guide the choices, the consequent decisions will be able to satisfy the Monnet-Buti compatibility test: economic (point A), institutional (point B) and political (point C) coherence. I would then consider them good, for Europe and for the Member States. Otherwise, it will be about ephemeral and perhaps counterproductive solutions in the medium term. Already in the coming months it will be possible to make some initial assessments.

The song and the volume

The text published above is an excerpt from Mario Monti’s afterword to Marco Buti’s book Was Jean Monnet right? Building Europe in times of crisis (Bocconi University Press, 288 pages, €34.90). Buti’s book opens with a preface by the governor of the Bank of Italy Ignazio Visco.
Born in Molino del Piano (Florence) in 1957, Marco Buti has been an official of the European Commission since 1987. He was for eleven years (from 2008 to 2019) at the helm of the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (Dg Ecfin) of the European Commission itself Buti since November 2019 has been the chief of cabinet of the current European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Paolo Gentiloni