"The on-going emergency, which is being tackled with a series of national measures without coordination at EU level and with strong degenerative implications, risks jeopardizing the entire European project. The CNEL believes that the serious current crisis obliges Member States to immediately create a new common European area capable of responding quickly and uniformly to the variability of the scenario that will increasingly characterize the globalized world, from an economic and social as well as health and environmental point of view". CNEL wrote it in the document entitled "Appeal to Europe. Unique opportunity for a new identity", drawn up by the III Commission for EU Policies and International Cooperation chaired by Vice-President Elio Catania and unanimously approved in the Presidency Council, which met by videoconference yesterday under the chairmanship of President Tiziano Treu, in the presence of the general secretary Paolo Peluffo. 

According to CNEL, there are three urgent measures that the European Union must adopt:

1. The issue of secured debt by all European states (Eurobonds), which, precisely because it is common, can reasonably be perceived as a high-quality financial instrument on global markets and appears suitable to contain risks that will become systemic. Even more, the introduction of a similar instrument on a stable and structural basis, supported by an autonomous European budget of the Eurozone, would boost the debt governance process and economic sustainability.

2. The injection of direct liquidity (helicopter money) to give oxygen to the non-performing real economy. 

3. The definitive overcoming, not the mere suspension, of the stability pact to support the great strategic choices of economic growth and cohesion, albeit always in a perspective of financial equilibrium. A strong appeal, therefore, that the national and European social partners address to the countries so that the Union could come out of this dramatic phase with the awareness that it is necessary to review its operating methods, in order to be able to manage market, environmental and social shocks, against which the existing structure has proved inadequate. 

"The situation that European states are facing constitutes paradoxically an opportunity, a historical necessity for rethinking Europe - observes Vice-President Catania - preserving the underlying spirit of the great unification project, but calling into question its institutional functioning and adjusting its ability to put in place common strategies and effective policies - the CNEL document says - The Union is facing a crossroads full of risks. But the opportunity must be seized. Reflecting on the future of Europe, providing itself with a vision and equipping itself with the tools to achieve it. In order to bring the European framework back into play, avert the political risk of disaggregation and crisis of democratic stability. The urgency of the moment requires quick decisions with immediate effect."

Download An appeal to Europe eng

Download Appel à l'Europe fr