| čItalia Number 60, November-December 2009 |
| Europe Restarts from the Treaty of Lisbon
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| di Camilla Sala |
| The new phase of the EU has started and it has acquired legal status. The hope of all? A stronger, more united and effective Europe |
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 The optimism and good wishes which traditionally accompany the beginning of the New Year make the advent of a “Greater Europe,” a global player and leader of a renewed season of multilateralism, seem a dream that’s a bit closer. However, 2010
could be an important year for the European Union, particularly because there’s less reason for deadlock.
On 1 December 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon came into effect, after the last ratifications of Eire, Poland and the Czech Republic. The Treaty was signed on December 13, 2007 by the 27 Heads of State of the member countries and contains some significant innovations for the operation of European institutions.
The optimism, however, must take realpolitik into account. The reform of the organisms of the Union doesn’t automatically guarantee progress unless there is a common political will, also because the new items introduced will only be adopted gradually. For the time being, the Treaty becoming effective only risks clearly highlighting some basic problems of Europe. Firstly, it’s still not clear how the two new positions created by the Treaty (the President of the Council of Europe and the “Foreign Minister”) will be called on to interact with the president of the European Commission. Then there is the so-called “strengthened cooperation,” which will allow at least 9 member states to continue some European policy choices thus escaping the requirement for unanimity which, however, risks giving rise to a compact group of “primi inter pares” which detaches the group and isolates it instead of creating a vanguard able to “tow” the other countries and so act to the benefit of all. On the other hand, the decisions on subjects of fundamental importance like foreign policy, security and taxation remain outside the new procedure of qualified majority voting, and as such, are subject to the possible veto by each state.
Another fundamental that the Treaty doesn’t help to unravel is in the European dynamics, the inter-government conciliation method prevails over the community one, which operates when the first subjects in terms of integration (in particular, the market) are touched but have difficulty finding application for the more sensitive ones rooted in national sovereignty. So we’re looking at what, in the light of events, is defined as “re-nationalization of European political life,” in which the community institutions are relegated to the role of extras, while the scene is still dominated by the countries.
It will, therefore, be important to understand the role that Germany, France and the United Kingdom intend to have within the new framework set out by the Treaty and, above all, if the Berlin-Paris axis will ensure that the two countries are united on European defense, migratory and industrial policies, etc. Another problem is the space that Italy will be able to make for itself , with the
risk of being excluded from the game and forced to jump onto the Franco-German train.
Therefore, although the Treaty of Lisbon is an important step, the idea of a federal Europe like that imagined by Altiero Spinelli at the time of the Ventotene Manifesto (1941) currently seems difficult to achieve.
If there isn’t shared awareness that individual European countries risk being marginalized at a global level, the optimism of desire will soon turn into the pessimism of reason.
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