Europa si, Euro no? Le prospettive che abbiamo di fronte

The current debate on European economic policy is quite original and with uncertain outcomes. The economic crisis started in 2008 feeds a political and academic debate not so deeply developed since the great crisis of the ‘30s. More Euro or less Euro? More market or less market? More State or less State? Did the expansionary austerity fail, or did it create the conditions for a more robust and balanced growth? Given the progressive crisis of the European monetary system and the risk of implosion of the Euro currency, isn’t it better to manage an exit strategy from the Euro “on the left”, rather than wait and see a “right wing” exit? These are all issues concerning the architecture of the European institutions, and of the underlining economic policies. On one side, some argue that it is impossible to reform the European fiscal and monetary policy; while, in opposition with this view, others sustain the necessity to pursue a more stringent and strongly reformed political and economic union integration. In Italy the debate seems to become even more polarized than in other European countries, not recognizing however that the country suffers from a domestic crisis within the general crisis, with very deep roots in the past and not easily affordable in the short run. The decline in productivity and wages, the industrial de-specialization, the lack of strategy to introduce structural reforms, these are all factors which condition the final outcome of each proposal. What it would be necessary is surely a macroeconomic policy up to the challenge of the deep global economic crisis, as well as fiscal and monetary policies adequate to the different regional specificities within the Eurozone. By now, the exit strategy from the Euro “on the left”, with respect to a Euro-exit “on the right”, is an outcome to be considered with more accuracy, but it remains an intellectual exercise. We think that the Euro-exit is a possible and traumatic outcome we should ward off, not only because it is a too risky outcome, but mainly because it does not bring with it the solutions to the domestic issues Italy should tackle. At the end, the power of ideas must prevail over vested class interests.