Følgende brev er forfattet af medlemmer af Europabevægelsen Italien.
WE NEED MORE EU LEADERSHIP AND RESOURCES TO OVERCOME THE EFFECTS OF COVID-19 CRISIS
LETTER TO THE EUROPEAN LEADERS
The agreement in the Eurogroup the 9th of April has opened the doors to the European Commission and its decision to restart the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) between the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament.
These negotiations were deadlocked in the European Council the 26th of February because of the exacerbated conflict between the so-called “frugal countries” and the “Friends of Cohesion” after quite two years of useless intergovernmental dialogue of the deaf.
After the health emergency the Europeans will face not only an economic emergency, which should be tackled, but mainly the need of a multiannual social and sustainable development deal for the whole European Union.
The EU urgently needs debt instruments to effectively promote European public and private investments and a better balance among national economies; the symmetry of the epidemic will indeed be replaced by an unsustainable asymmetry between States, between regions and between social classes.
These instruments must be issued by the European institutions so as to raise funds on the market on the same basis and for the benefit of all Member States.
These instruments should not come from a group of States, because this kind of limited initiative could create a deep and dangerous split in the Eurozone paving the way for an intervention of the markets against the stability of the Euro.
Investors will purchase even more the European common debt instruments only if the means to repay them do not come from the voluntary contributions of the member countries but from a strong European budget financed by regular flows, that is, by European own resources giving adequate credibility to this extraordinary measure of sustainable growth.
The four instruments put in place at European level at this stage (ESM facility with the specific conditionalities established by the Eurogroup, EIB, ECB, SURE) will be insufficient because they are to cover the European’s needs for the short term and since they will increase the national debts.
An additional Recovery Fund is then needed to support European common policies in the fields of welfare, sustainable development and energy transition, agro-food transformation and distribution industry, common research, planned interventions in the internal areas, small and medium-sized enterprises and non-profit sector activities.
A European recovery plan will be necessary in a medium term in the framework of the MFF covering a quinquennial (and not septennial) planning so as to be consistent with the EU political and democratic cycle.
The new MFF should reach a total amount of 2000 billions Euro so that they can guarantee the production of common goods to the European citizens on the basis of gradually created true own resources instead of national contributions.
In this perspective the new MFF should create a guarantee for a European public debt, whose design could be inspired from the European Financial Stabilization Mechanism (EFSM) one, under the name of a “European Financial Recovery Fund (EFRF)”, able to issue hundreds of billions of common debt.
We ask the European Council of the 23rd of April – acting if necessary by majority – and the European Parliament to give a clear political mandate to European Commission asking it to propose a new MFF responding to the following principles:
- allow the EU to guarantee common goods that cannot be ensured by single States,
- increase revenue with fresh resources, necessary to implement the new European political agenda and meet the priorities related to the European Green Deal, the digital transformation, the productive system and the economic and social crisis that will derive from the health emergency.
- overcome the tax avoidance of multinational companies that subtract hundreds of billions a year using the opportunities offered by disharmonious tax regimes including the seized assets under the anti-mafia legislations,
- introduce European levies on web profit making activities and carbon producing activities including through a border carbon adjustment,
We believe that doing so the Europeans will overcome the COVID-19 crisis much more efficiently and rapidly, while taking a major step in the European integration process.
GIULIANO AMATO
MICHELE BAGELLA
MARIO BALDASSARRI
ENRIQUE BARON CRESPO
GLORIA BARTOLI
FRANCO BASSANINI
BRANDO BENIFEI
GILLES BERHAULT
YVES BERTONCINI
LORENZO BINI SMAGHI
GABRIELE BISCHOFF
PETER BOFINGER
ANDREA BOITANI
VINCENZO CAMPORINI
ROCCO CANGELOSI
DANIEL COHN BENDIT
MASSIMO D’ALEMA
PIER VIRGILIO DASTOLI
FERRUCCIO DE BORTOLI
ROBERTA DE MONTICELLI
DOMENEC RUIZ DEVESA
CLAUDIO DE VINCENTI
GIJS DE VRIES
PIERO FASSINO
JEAN-PAUL FITOUSSI
MONICA FRASSONI
EMILIO GABAGLIO
ENRICO GIOVANNINI
ULRIKE GUEROT
PAOLO GUERRIERI PALEOTTI
HERVE JOUEANJEAN
ALAIN LAMASSOURE
JO LEINEN
ALFREDO MACCHIATI
SEBASTIEN MAILLARD
GIAMPIERO MASSOLO
MAURIZIO MELANI
YVES MENY
MARCELLO MESSORI
STEFANO MICOSSI
FERDINANDO NELLI FEROCI
VALERIO ONIDA
LEOLUCA ORLANDO
PIERCARLO PADOAN
COSTANZA PERA
LUCREZIA REICHLIN
ANDRE SAPIR
GESINE SCHWAN
DASA SASIC SILOVIC
GIANLUIGI TOSATO
SALVATORE TORIELLO
NADIA URBINATI
RAYMOND VAN ERMEN
VINCENZO VISCO COMANDINI
LUIGI ABETE
ANTONIO ARGENZIANO
GIAMPIERO AULETTA
ENZO BALBONI
FABIO BASSAN
ROBERTO BIN
MARIO BOVA
MATTEO BRACCIALI
SALVATORE BRAGANTINI
GIUSEPPE BUSIA
CLAUDIO CAPPELLINI
ENZO CHELI
GIUSEPPE COCO
PAOLO COSTA
GIANFRANCO D’ALESSIO
GAETANO D’AURIA
ROBERTO DELLA SETA
GIOVANNA DEMINICO
BRUNO OSCAR DENTE
MARIO DI CIOMMO
LEILA EL-HOUSSI
DANIELA FELISINI
PAOLO GARONNA
EMANUELE GATTI
CARLO GIANNONE
FILIP GOEMANS
PIERO IGNAZI
ALFONSO IOZZO
AMEDEO LEPORE
MARINA LILLI VENTURINI
ALBRTO MAJOCCHI
ALBERTO MARITATI
SILVANO MARSEGLIA
FABIO MASINI
VINCENZO MATTINA
MARIO ROSARIO MAZZOLA
FEDERICO MEROLA
ALESSANDRO NATALINI
FABRIZIO ONIDA
GABRIELE PANIZZI
SILVANA PARUOLO
GIANFRANCO PASQUINO
CESARE PINELLI
FRANCO PIZZETTI
PAOLO PONZANO
STEFANO POZZOLI
GIOVANNI PUGLISI
GIAMPAOLO ROSSI
VINCENZO RUSSO
ROBERTO SOMMELLA
DOMENICO SORACE
GUIDO TABELLINI
NICOLETTA TEODOSI
VITO LEONARDO TELESCA
LUISA TORCHIA
GINELLA VOCCA
