Interview with Prof. Sergio Fabbrini, professor at Guido Carli University, Rome: “It is necessary to change both perspective and paradigm on the EU”

The Rome Declaration, signed by the leaders of the member states on the 25th of March 2017, brings into the forefront a European Union with „different rhythms and intensities”, an ambiguous and hard to decipher expression with regard to the future of the EU.

Sergio Fabbrini, professor of political science and international relations and director of the School of Government at the Luiss Guido Carli in Rome, describes the reconstruction of the European Union identity after the Rome Declaration, in an interview given for Europunkt to Vladimir Adrian Costea.

Citeşte versiunea în limba română aici.

What is the change that the Rome Declaration brings to the reconstruction of the European Union?

As it was predictable, the Rome Declaration of 25 March 2017 (for the sixtieth anniversary of the Rome Treaties) ended up in an ambiguous compromise. Even Merkel’s wishes to introduce the principle of a multi-speed Europe into the Declaration was scaled down. The Declaration recites: “We will act together, at different paces and intensity where necessary, while moving in the same direction, as we have done in the past, in line with the Treaties and keeping the door open to those who want to join later. Our Union is undivided and indivisible”. Indeed, as I explained in my book, Which European Union? Europe After the Euro Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2015), the EU member states are not moving “in the same direction”, as it should be clear after Brexit, and they are all but “undivided”, as shown by the euro or the migration crises. Ambiguity was necessary for bringing the 27 member state leaders to sign the Declaration. However, it was not sufficient for dispelling the divisions on the future of the European Union among its member states. Those divisions will re-emerge soon.

To what extent a Union of „different rhythms and intensities” differs from a „multi-speed” Union?

There is no significant difference between the two formulas. Indeed, there is a strong pressure to muddling-through. In particular, the various technocratic establishments of Europe assume that the EU is legitimated through the results of its policies. For those technocracies, legitimisation is a functional and not political facet of the integration process.

However, that is not the case. The EU is not an international organisation which is only legitimated through its results (as, for example, NAFTA). Obviously the effectiveness of its policies is important, but it is not enough. Nor is it possible to think of continuing to mask the work of the EU, as Delors suggested, to avoid raising nationalistic hackles. The silent consensus around the integration processes ended some time ago. Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders, Matteo Salvini, Frauke Petry are all around to remind us of that fact. It is not possible to respond to their political challenge with only functional solutions.

What are the challenges that the new construction of the European Union must meet in the aftermath of Brexit?

It is necessary to change both perspective and paradigm on the EU.

As for the paradigm, it is necessary to recover the idea of the federal union, abandoning both that of the international organisation and that of the parliamentary, although federal, state. Federal union is the answer to the aggregation of previously independent states. The aggregation of demographically asymmetric and national identity’s differentiated states is incompatible with the centralization of the federal parliamentary state, but also with the lack of democracy that characterizes international organizations.

As for the perspective, it is necessary to identify the policies to be shared in a federal union and clearly separate them from those which must remain (or return to being) at national level. Once those policies have been identified, then it will be possible to see which of them can be pursued within the Treaties and which instead will require abandoning the Treaties.

What are the policies which should be handled by a federal union?

The comparative analysis of successful federal unions (the United States and Switzerland) tells us that they are limited, but with a general jurisdictional scope (i.e. they do not allow opt-outs).

They fall into three broad policy areas.

The first is that of security, an area which includes diplomacy, defence, intelligence and border control. Unions are created to defend against external and internal threats.

The second area is economic, an area which includes managing the common currency, but also the union’s fiscal, budget and social policy. The union must equip itself with a genuine (albeit small) budget, based on autonomous fiscal resources which can be used to support anti-cyclical and social policies, such as European insurance against youth unemployment.

The third area is that of development, an area which includes investment policies in the fields of scientific research, infrastructure and innovation.

Indeed, the conclusion of the Rome Declaration identifies similar policy areas (security, sustainability, welfare, defence) to better integrate in the next ten years. These (clear but limited) policies must be part of a single and coherent project. It is not possible to sign up for one policy, but reject another.

Therefore, you are critical about differentiation of policies within the Lisbon Treaty?

Yes, exactly. The differentiation in policy regimes does not allow citizens to keep accountable the politicians who are taking decisions and replace them as they see fit. At the same time, it must be said that all the other policy areas must remain under the control of the national democracies.

What happens if some countries oppose your proposal?

It is probable, indeed certain, that some countries will oppose this approach, preferring a Europe à la carte which enhances their sovereignty. The response must be the strengthening of the single market, the place where they and the federal union’s member states should cooperate. The ambiguity of the Rome Declaration might be dispelled by a group of states deciding to move towards a federal union operating within a strengthened single market. It should be the single market the place for aggregating all the European states.

At the same time, the political (federal) union will play a stabilizing role for the entire continent, showing that supranational democracy can coexist with national democracy. In my view, a federal union is a sovereign union (in specific policies) of sovereign states (in other specific policies). We have to radically change our way of thinking about the future of Europe.

Sergio Fabbrini is Professor of Political Science and International Relations and Director of the School of Government at the LUISS Guido Carli in Rome where he holds the Jean Monnet Chair. He is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science and Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California at Berkeley. He was the Editor of the “Italian Journal of Political Science” in the period 2004-2009. He won several prizes and taught in various international universities. His latest books are Sdoppiamento. Una prospettiva nuova per l’Europa (Laterza, 2017) and Which European Union? Europe After the Euro Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2015). He is columnist of the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore.