We will probably succeed in avoiding a disaster. After resisting for so long, to please the banking lobbies, we are going to set up, after much delay the minimal mechanisms to withstand for a time the crisis. Without solving anything in substance, because we will not address the root causes, which is the absence of a global rule of law.
As for Europe, the first minimal act of salvation will lay the first foundations of what we should have done since the beginning of this crisis: initiate the movement toward the creation of the instruments of fiscal federalism.
Such a federalism is absolutely necessary. It is a matter of survival. And personally, I have been in favor of it, for a long time, under its most elaborated form: the eurozone raising its own taxes independently, which will allow it to borrow, invest and take a portion of the debt of each member state, which must, in turn, keep their deficits under control or be required to do so, if they are unable do it for themselves.
But in the current state of political imbalance of Europe, such a federalism will do nothing but give to the less indebted countries the power to control the deficits of those who are a little more indebted.
Then the risk is great that this Europe chooses to reduce the taxation of capital and look for the necessary savings in the only areas where still prevail the desire for social justice; for example by allowing, under the pretext of savings of public expenditure, the current general hypocritical use, in Germany, of the Bolkestein directive, allowing it to employ Poles in Germany at the Polish rate. Fiscal federalism would then lead to harmonize the social right on the lowest European bidder.
If we are moving in that direction, the defense of the euro will have led to the dismantling of the social models of the most advanced countries, for the sole benefit of the financial industry. That would obviously be a disaster.
To avoid this trap, which is against the logic of Europe and absolutely not necessary for the survival of the euro, now it is necessary to complete the project of budgetary federalism by that of social federalism, which would adjust the social model upward.
Unfortunately, under current circumstances, governments will not offer it. And we will wait one day for the peoples to reject all the European construction to think about it. Then it will be too late.
To avoid this, the peoples will have to get involved right away. We could imagine for this that they use Article 11 of the Lisbon Treaty, which will enter into force on January 1st, 2012 and which provides that “citizens of the [European] Union, numbering not less than one million, who are nationals of a significant number of Member States, to take the initiative of inviting the Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties”. So let’s imagine, without dreaming, that more than one million people sign the following: “We, citizens of the European Union, are asking the Commission to prepare now, with regard to the budgetary processes reform, a reform aimed at gradual alignment of each of the social rights of the citizens of the Union, on the right of the countries where the protections are the most favorable to employees”.
Such a movement would probably have no legal impact, but it would change everything politically. The peoples, finally, would understand that they can, if they are serious, impose their own priorities on markets.