La Sapienza - Università di Roma

Lunedì 12 ottobre 2015, a partire dalle ore 9.30, si è svolta la Conferenza “Crescita economica e integrazione europea: il dibattito pubblico sui vincoli alla sovranità degli stati membri”. L’incontro è stato ospitato dal Dipartimento di Comunicazione e Ricerca sociale, di Sapienza Università di Roma, presso il Centro congressi di via Salaria 113, Roma.

La crisi economica e finanziaria ha portato a radicalizzare il nodo problematico dell’Unione europea: quello del deficit democratico e dell’assenza di un popolo europeo che si senta rappresentato in quanto tale. Anche di fronte alle nuove urgenze legate agli imponenti flussi migratori, il progetto europeo, rischia di fallire se non diventa una costruzione condivisa dalle persone che vi abitano. La Conferenza internazionale finale di EUPoliS “Partecipazione politica transnazionale, rappresentanza e sovranità nel progetto europeo" (programma Erasmus+ Jean Monnet finanziato dalla Commissione UE) è stata dedicata al confronto tra giuristi, storici, economisti e politologi sulla questione degli ulteriori limiti alle sovranità nazionali determinate dall’introduzione nelle Carte costituzionali di alcuni Stato membri del principio del pareggio di bilancio, dal potenziamento del ruolo della BCE nella gestione della crisi dell’Eurozona e dalla necessità di rivedere l’intera governance economica dell’Unione.

Ospiti dell’incontro nella sessione mattutina, presieduta da Giuseppe Tesauro (presidente emerito della corte costituzionale), sono stati: Mario Morcellini (direttore CORIS), Paola Marsocci (costituzionalista e responsabile del progetto EUPoliS), Francesco Gui (storico, Sapienza Università di Roma), Antonia Carparelli (economista, Rappresentanza in Italia della Commisione UE), Adriana Cerretelli (editorialista, ilSole24Ore), Ana Maria Carmona Contreras (costituzionalista, Università di Siviglia). Ospiti dell’incontro nella sessione pomeridiana sono stati: Filippo Reganati (economista, Sapienza Università di Roma), Francesco Bilancia (costituzionalista, Università di Chieti-Pescara),  Elena Paparella (costituzionalista, Sapienza Università di Roma), Ulrike Liebert (politologa, Università di Brema).

Il seminario si è rivolto soprattutto a studenti, ricercatori e docenti, professionisti della comunicazione ed avvocati. Dopo gli interventi, il dibattito è stato animato dalle domande del pubblico.

On October 12, the Final international conference of Project EUPoliS (Transnational Political Participation, Representation and Sovereignty in the European Project), co-financed by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, was held at the Sapienza CoRiS Department.

The 18-month project featured a series of conferences and public seminars. The first conference focused on political representation in the EU and how to address euro-scepticism; the second centred on the participation of youth and civil society in EU political activities; the third conference addressed gender equality in political representation, while the closing conference tackled the public debate on the constraints to the sovereignty of EU member states, particularly in an economic perspective (all the documentation on these meetings is available on this website).

The difficulties that face the EU in terms of economic growth could slow down, if not obstruct, the integration process. Many of the decisions made during the crisis period transcend the borders of what was then delineated in the treaties. The central issue, as Prof. Marsocci, project scientific supervisor, highlighted in her introductory report, is that the absence of a European macroeconomic dimension with redistributive policies, on the one hand, and the evaluation by European institutions of economical and employment policies of member states, on the other, could influence their decisions when approving national budgets.

The conference was chaired by Prof. Giuseppe Tesauro, former President of the Constitutional Court, who stressed the fact that economic constraints imposed on member states – first of all a balanced budget – do not derive from EU directives, but are the result of international agreements, such as the Fiscal Compact, that were agreed upon outside of the context of the founding EU treaties. These peculiar tools seek to compensate for the lack of power to determine economic policy.

In the morning session, Prof. Francesco Gui, Sapienza Historian and Coordinator of the Altiero Spinelli Centre, pointed out the impossibility of properly achieving economic and monetary union objectives without prior political union, suggesting that the EU should be transformed into a Federation on the model of the Helvetic Confederation.

Dr. Antonia Carparelli, Economic Advisor to the European Commission Representation in Italy, underlined that the democratic management of the crisis necessarily involves the transfer of national sovereignty to implement solidarity. It is the only way to recover the consensus of citizens towards the European Project.

If public debate is the foundation of every democratic decision, the rapidity with which Spain changed its constitution to introduce the principle of a balanced budget – pointed out Prof. Ana Maria Carmona Contreras, a constitutionalist from the University of Seville –shows how some national governments, and also the EU, reacted to the economic crisis disregarding public opinion.

This didn't happen in Greece, where the Tzipras Government was brave enough – in the opinion of Adriana Cerretelli, Il Sole 24 Ore columnist – to explain to public opinion the principle of the non-reversible nature of the European pact. Rejecting the scenario of Greece exiting the Eurozone, Tsipras underlined the communitarian nature of the EU, where the economic problems of any member State must be faced with solidarity as problems common to the entire Union.

The afternoon session centred on more strictly economic topics. Prof. Filippo Reganati, a Sapienza Economist, highlighted the connection between economic and fiscal policy, underlining that one of the Union's weaknesses in facing the economic crisis was that member states did not transfer their fiscal sovereignty to the Union.

Prof. Francesco Bilancia (Constitutionalist from the University of Chieti-Pescara) addressed the consequences of the economic crisis in terms of social rights that are no longer considered as individual rights to protect, but as economic policies on which states can intervene, reducing rights to achieve savings and boost economic growth. The reduction of social security to a monetary issue is, in his opinion, one of the main reasons for the disinterest of citizens in the EU.

The role of the BCE in the Eurozone crisis was the topic of Sapienza Law Professor Elena Paparella’s presentation, who pointed out how recent EU bilateral relations between debtor countries and creditor institutions overshadowed the principle of reciprocal relations, that to date distinguished relations between EU member States.

Prof. Ulrike Liebert, a political analyst from the University of Bremen, adopted Greece as the paradigm of the contrast between national and European sovereignty to criticise the fact that member states were not available to share public debt and the blindness of those states that pushed for further austerity measures to resolve the Greek problem.

The records of the Project EUPoliS meetings have been partly published in the volume edited by P. Marsocci, Political Representation in the European Union Tested by Euro-scepticism (series of the Italian Association of European Jurists), Editoriale scientifica, Naples, 2015. The second volume, which will also include the records of the final conference, will be published by the end of 2015.