The farmers' protest is only the tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath is a deep crisis of the Monetary Union. In the middle of a war between Ukraine and Russia that seems to have no end; with an economic crisis looming; with a growing debt and without digital champions that allow us to take advantage of the opportunities of the technological revolution. Every day we are further away from the United States, a preferred partner that is not trustworthy.
And in the midst of this chaos, the only thing that seems to worry its current partners is addressing a new enlargement with Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. As its president, Ursula von der Leyen, says, it is inexcusable to go from 27 to 30. And all this without a far-reaching plan to confront the serious problems it is experiencing. “Big donkey, whether it walks or not,” as she says in popular wisdom.
It is nothing new, although the problems are getting worse by the day. In 2016, a group of 17 experts, including Javier Solana, wrote a book-report under the direction of professors Daniel Innerarity and Miquel Seguró entitled Where are you going, Europe? In it they came to the conclusion that the EU “is at a minimum, almost without credibility. In need of a profound review of her way of facing the problems that she faces, her horizon opens internally and externally to situations for which she does not seem to have an adequate response. To do?".
Well, at the moment what occurs to the current president is to opt for a new mandate. That is, to reissue the current coalition between conservatives and socialists, which have remained in the political structure of the EU for 70 years. That is, after the next European elections everything will remain the same.
But everything can change suddenly if Europeans decide to move to the right to escape the crisis. In opinion polls, a certain fatigue of an increasingly paternalistic and interventionist populist left is detected.
The European People's Party is reconsidering forming a government with ECR, where 20 far-right parties are active. That would radically change current economic policy, making it more demanding with spending control. For a country like Spain, with a large fiscal deficit and a very high debt, things could become very seriously complicated.
For Ignasi Guardans, with whom I recently debated at the Paul VI Foundation about the future of the EU, no one can end it from the outside, not even Donald Trump if he is elected president of the United States again: “Those who can end it with the European project they are the insiders; if the extreme right governs, which is increasingly stronger,” he believes. Of course, the question I asked him was: “What have we done so badly that more and more people vote for extreme conservatives?”
The answer lies in the absence of self-criticism and pragmatism on the part of progressive parties. Things don't just happen.
The real danger for the EU is undoubtedly the absence of a competitive economic policy based on innovation. If we are not able to take advantage of the fantastic increase in productivity that is occurring with new technologies, the EU will end up dissolving like a sugar in a glass of water.
The data is compelling. In the last decade, the United States has 47% more wealth than the EU. The per capita income of the EU has been separating itself from that of North America until reaching an increasingly greater distance. The numbers speak volumes: the American gross domestic product per capita is currently 76,329, compared to 37,432 in the EU, and the divergence is increasing.
The difference between the US and the EU is that the former have the possibility of reacting more quickly to geopolitical and financial changes. It is clear that the EU has to accelerate the liberalization of the internal market if it wants to take advantage of productivity increases. It is not enough to regulate, it is necessary to accompany digital business research and creativity with concrete measures and lighter administrative practices.
