Consultative (Maastricht)
Commission I (Constitutional Affairs)
Thursday 15 October 1992, 12.05 – Presidency of Vice President Nicola SAVINO
Bill:
Ratification and execution of the Treaty on European Union with 17 attached Protocols and with final act containing 33 declarations, made in Maastricht on 7 February 1992 (1587).
Opinion to the III Commission (Foreign Affairs)
( omisssis )
Deputy Raffaele TISCAR (DC group) notes that the examination of the bill ratifying the Maastricht Treaty raises some perplexities. Given that he is a staunch supporter of the need for European integration, he notes, however, that the Maastricht Treaty is based on the primacy of the economy over politics. This represents the failure of a great political ideal, that is, that of a politically united Europe: in fact, Europe is instead arising only on the commonality of economic and monetary interests but the economic interest, in its judgment, is unable to support the political one. The Treaty of Maastricht records a deficit of democracy in that it divides decision-making seats from the consent of the citizens, since the European institutions are decision-making bodies even more distant from the citizens than the national ones and all this is in contrast with the tendency prevalent today to achieve bringing institutions closer to citizens. Furthermore, the government of the currency is completely separate from politics: it is believed that in Germany the chancellor is unable to control interest rates. History shows that the government of money must be connected to that of politics and the economy : a release is very dangerous not only for the economic consequences, but above all because the decisions of the monetary authorities are completely divorced from the consent of the citizens. All this does not favor European unity.
(… the reading of the parliamentary acts reserves fascinating surprises and confirms us in our awareness that they are not particularly original. But let's get back to current events: in the meantime, the guidelines on the Pandemic Crisis Support of the MES have come out. Debt is perfectly sustainable! Would you ever have expected it? Well, meanwhile, now there is a credible government: with a premier who in early February says that COVID 19 is not contagious, a minister of justice who frees cartloads of mobsters from a certain rank, a minister of agriculture who has only them in mind, a minister of innovation or what is serene as the rainbow will explain that the app that protects us from the #viruscheuccide has been chosen by the secret services ( for charity, there can be a thousand good reasons for this modus operandi: the problem is the draft! …), an emergency commissioner who argues with the head of the task force and everywhere blocks the masks that l and businesses have made their own business, etc. Credibility, as you see, abounds!
But there is also another small detail: according to article 13, paragraph 1, letter b of the Treaty establishing the ESM , if the Italian debt was not sustainable, we would not be allowed to indebt ourselves with the ESM! Understood, no, how does it work? Sustainability is a political decision, because it depends on what the ECB will decide to do. In my opinion, what will happen is quite obvious: we will have to get under the program, and for this reason they will make us indebted to the ESM despite the situation and advise caution. After that, the others will be able to monetize. I accept bets: afterwards I will need money too, like all of us, although certainly less than many of you – but you know that I am aware of it …)
This is a machine translation of a post (in Italian) written by Alberto Bagnai and published on Goofynomics at the URL https://goofynomics.blogspot.com/2020/05/in-sede-consultiva-maastricht.html on Thu, 07 May 2020 16:55:00 +0000. Some rights reserved under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.