lunes, 18 de junio de 2018

Europe should leave out Ikea

"Europe is not in crisis, the European Union is under construction", a Spanish high official working for the Commission said some years ago in a public event in Madrid, using that wise language between the forcefulness of English and the diplomatic occurrence.
The fact that Europe is in permanent construction for half a century leads me to the image of a couple spending weekends in Ikea. 
After the Second World War, in the aftermath of inmense destruction, pan national political movements grew up with different fates, but the European project is the uniqueness that has survived, among those movements like that pan Arabism ruled by the Egiptian Gamal Abdel Naser, the pan Americanism that rested at last in the brand of an airline company (Pan Am, that went bankrupt in 1991); Tropicalism which bear the name of a musical movement created by the Brazilian Caetano Veloso.
For more than five decades the European political project has become established while new members have joined it. Even today Balkans countries and Turkey are knocking at the door. However we cannot hide the problems and lack of unanimity among the 28 state members in making decisions which is more complex than ever.
Against all odds, the European Union has recently reacted to a couple of disasters with the capability  to destabilize a pyramid, Brexit and Trump, but the outcome is not clear. As far as it is known, the Community budget for the period 2021/2027 does not give enough clues, excepting in Defense industry issues, where there is a the clear ambition to do something in common.
The last news about Europe is coming from the south of the continent. The French President Emmanuel Macron won the elections against the extreme right party with a clear pro European political program.
In the first days of June new governments have taken office in Italy and Spain, marked by Euro-skepticism in the first case, while in Madrid the new executive of Pedro Sanchez includes an ex president of the European Parliament –Borrell- and the last general manager of budgets of the European Commission itself –Calviño-, showing the Spanish will to end the international irrelevance in recent years betting on Europe.
With 61 years of marriage Europe no longer has the age to continue painting walls and buying furniture in Ikea as a newlywed couple. It is the time to cement the relationship and watch TV calmly lying on the sofa. In this situation the so called European Pillar of Social Rights -proclaimed by EU leaders last November full of sound and fury- could be the key to complete the construction of a political community.
There will be no future or common defense without social Europe, because there will not be a political community to defend.
The time to fight against Ikea assembly instructions has gone. It is time to enjoy the furniture.