2023-12-28 08:52:44
by Federico Fubini
The senator for life and that relay to Brussels. His roots His thoughts and actions had roots in culture, diversity, spirituality
Professor, you took on the role of head of the European Internal Market immediately after Jacques Delors left the European Commission. What kind of Europe was it then?
A Europe rich in projects, weak in concrete achievements. However, launched towards the future and full of hope.
How did Delors manage to get personalities as different as those of Franois Mitterrand, Giulio Andreotti, Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl to work together?
Delors’ thought and action had roots in culture, diversity, spirituality. Politics was a duty, a rigorous service for others. Europe was a dream, but indispensable for our future.
Two great figures passed away on the same day, Delors and Wolfgang Schuble. Were they really antithetical as a certain vulgate describes them?
In Italy Delors seen as the great Good, striving for growth and inclusion; Schuble as the Big Bad, a lover of austerity and hostile to countries prone to deficits and inflation. We forget that Delors was the man who convinced Mitterrand to take the path of budget discipline which, not accepted by the French communist party, led him to leave the government. Without that turning point, France would not have been ready to agree on the path towards the single currency with Kohl’s Germany, once the Berlin Wall had fallen. A path that Andreotti’s Italy will adhere to, making a dangerous Franco-German axis a true European project. In 1994, Schuble himself wrote a lucid article with Karl Lamers that shook Italian politics. This, with an attitude that was not unusual for it, considered it offensive that the two Germans were hypothesizing an initial nucleus of countries in the new currency, among which Italy would be welcome, but only if it was also in line with some parameters of public finance. The disdain, combined with the fear of really being left out, gave the impetus to Italy’s preparation for that historic event.
She’s had to deal with both. How would you describe their personal and intellectual trait?
Having become commissioner in 1995, I often visited Delors in Paris and Schuble in Bonn. In the first I found inspiration for my task at the time, creating the single market, a project born from the political ingenuity of two antithetical personalities, Delors and Thatcher. With Schuble I discussed European integration, a topic that we were both passionate about, and the social market economy, the concept of the economy born at the University of Fribourg, his hometown, and which I tried to promote in Italy, from the columns of the Corriere. We couldn’t imagine that we would find each other again in 2011 – he was the Finance Minister of the Merkel government, I was the interim Finance Minister. Months of intense confrontation followed. There were two points of disagreement. First, I immediately said a clear no to the idea supported by Schuble and others in international finance, that Italy resort to the help of the State Rescue Fund. I was firm in stating that, however precarious the situation, Italy would save itself, without giving up pieces of sovereignty to the troika, but rather by inducing Germany to abandon the straitjacket with which it kept the ECB from employing against the crisis all its potential. Second, it was almost impossible to persuade Schuble to accept more favorable treatment for public investments in the stability pact. This was its serious limitation, which impoverished Europe and Germany itself of much needed investments. Having said this, I must recognize that Schuble has always been loyal and supportive towards Italy, although never more lenient than what European rules allow. His public appreciation for Italy’s progress has been a tonic every time, for our morale and for the markets.
Delors had stopped commenting on European current affairs. Do you think he would have recognized himself in today’s Europe?
Both Delors and Schuble were pillars of their countries and of Europe. Without them perhaps we wouldn’t have the single market and the single currency today. We would not have a vision of Europe oriented towards growth and cohesion, but on a basis of monetary stability and productivity; not with the illusory path of continuous monetary expansion and public deficits.
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December 28, 2023 (modified December 28, 2023 | 07:51)
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