democracy

May 9, Europe Day

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

On May 9, 1950, 70 years ago, a brave man, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed a radically new solution to an old problem.

schuman eliseo

Schuman had the courage to think outside the box and above all to listen to a man with a good idea, Jean Monnet, who – without no institutional or political role – reached out to present his solution.

The problem was the control over disputed territories on the border between France and Germany, rich in mineral resources, coal and iron, strategic for the economy in times of peace and even more in times of war

The idea was to “de-nationalize” them: entrusting them to an independent authority under political shared control (ministerial and parliamentary) and under Judicial control. Ownership and national territories would have remained just the same, yet regulation and access would have been uniform and non-discriminatory. A simple, but a disruptive idea in comparison with the logic of borders and alliances than dominating international relations.

Schuman’s speech on 9 May was intended as addressed first of all to Germany, but it was open to other interested governments.

Schuman’s speech was about concrete achievements, step by step, intended to rise solidarity among the people, but it of done, but it drew, as well, a long-term vision of a united continent after centuries of war.

Pragmatism and idealism, hand in hand.

On Europe’s day, we discuss a short and long term vision for it

The full recording of the webinar is online on the YouTube Channel of Università del Salento at this address: https://youtu.be/x8KmXlAxy1g

Here are the links to the four next webinars in the series , feel free to share them
 
 
 
 
 
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A EUROPEAN ANSWER TO THE CORONAVIRUS THREAT TO PROVE THAT THE EU IS A TRUE COMMUNITY WITH A SHARED FUTURE

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

680px-COVID-19_Outbreak_Cases_in_Europe.svg

file from the Wikimedia Commons

We, European citizens, understand that Covid-19 is a common threat, that may hurt one country sooner than another, but will eventually hurt us all, and can impact our daily life and economy almost like a war.

We, European citizens, are worried and scared by this threat; and even more by the cacophony, selfishness and self-destructive short-sightedness of the different, uncoordinated national responses; by the lack of foresight of our national leaders, who pretend not to know that our interdependence requires a single European answer with strict containment measures of the pandemics, and an EU-wide plan to re-start the European economy afterward.

We, European citizens, denounce the current EU as an incomplete Res Publica, thus ill-equipped to face this challenge, with little competences and powers to face the pandemics. We welcome the timely decision by the Commission to provide 25 billion euro and financial flexibility to cope with this threat. Maybe it is the most it can do, but it is not enough.

We call upon the European Commission and Parliament to propose, and on the national governments to adopt (starting with the Eurogroup meeting of March 16, and a following extraordinary European Council to be called soon after) the following urgent measures, also using the Lisbon Treaty passerelle clause and simplified Treaty revision provisions:

  1. Make public health and the fight against epidemics a shared competence of the EU, subject to the ordinary legislative procedure, and provide the Commission with extraordinary powers to coordinate the response to the epidemics, as a federal government should do.
  2. Enlarge the scope of the European Stability Mechanism to finance the immediate strengthening of the European and national health systems to cope with the pandemics, which threatens the lives of European citizens, and thus also the economic and financial stability of the EU.
  3. Abolish the compulsory balanced budget provision for the EU and create an EU Safe Asset to be issued to finance an EU-wide plan to promote EU economic recovery and social cohesion during and after the emergency.
  4. Move fiscal issues to the ordinary legislative procedure and provide the EU with fiscal powers to adopt new own resources – such as the carbon tax (and carbon tariffs), the digital tax, the financial transaction tax – to finance the EU budget (or the Euro-area Budgetary Instrument, if the decision could be reached only at the Euro-area level).
  5. Immediately approve the next Multiannual Financial Framework increasing the budget to at least 1,3% of the EU GDP, as requested by the European Parliament, on the basis of the current structure of the budget financing; and with the provision to reach 2% with the new own resources, to ensure the provision of crucial EU-wide public goods.
  6. Turn the planned Conference on the future of Europe into a fully-fledged European Convention to draft a new Constitutional Pact among the EU citizens and Member states.

We European citizens believe this is the defining hour for the EU. The social perception of the EU will be shaped for years by its response to this crisis. This is the time to prove the EU is a community of values with a shared destiny, a life-line for its citizens and member states in the face of a turbulent global world with political, economic and health threats. It is time for bold common steps to overcome fear. It is time for European unity, not for national division.

 

To sign follow this link

Below a first list of signatories (now more than 400)

Romano Prodi, Former President of the European Commission, former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, President Sciences Po; President Jacques Delors Institute; former Italian Prime Minister Enrique Baron Crespo, Chair Jean Monnet ad personam, Former President European Parliament Pascal Lamy, Honorary President Jacques Delors Institute; former European Commissioner; former Director-General World Trade Organization Anna Diamantopoulou, President To Diktio, former Greek Minister and European Commissioner José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former Prime Minister in Spain Ferdinando Nelli Feroci, President Istituto Affari Internazionali, former European Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship Gian Paolo Accardo, Founder of VoxEurope Alberto Alemanno, École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) Paris; Founder and Director, the Good Lobby Daniele Archibugi, Acting Director, IRPPS – Italian National Research Council Brando Benifei, Member of the European Parliament, Head of the Italian delegation in the Socialist and Democrat Group, Board of the Spinelli Group Vítor Bento, Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas Universidade de Lisboa; former Director of the Foreign Department of the Portuguese Central Bank; former General Director of Treasury, President of Junta de Crédito Público and member of the European Monetary Committe Stefano Boeri, President Triennale di Milano; Full professor Urbanistica Politecnico di Milano Pierre Brunet, Directeur du Département des Masters de Droit public de l’Ecole de droit de la Sorbonne Maria Chiara Carrozza, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa, former Rector, former Italian Minister of Education, University and Research Innocenzo Cipolletta, President Assonime, former director general of Confindustria (Association of Italian Business) Carlos Closa, European University Institute, former Director of the European, Transnational and Global Governance research area; former Deputy Director at the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies (CEPC) in Madrid, and member of the Venice Commission for Democracy through Law of the Council of Europe Stefan Collignon, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa; former Harvard and London School of Economics; former Director Association for the Monetary Union of Europe Andrew Duff, President of the Spinelli Group; Visiting Fellow, European Policy Centre; former Member of the European Parliament Rafał Dymek, President Polska Fundacja Robert Schuman Sergio Fabbrini, Director School of Government at Luiss University Piero Fassino, President Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale; Vice President Foreign Affairs Committe of the Chamber of Deputies in Italy; Elsa Fornero, University of Turin, Scientific Coordinator of CeRP – Collegio Carlo Alberto, Vice President of SHARE and Research Fellow of IZA and Netspar, Former Italian Minister of Labour and Social Policies John Erik Fossum, Arena Center for European Studies, Oslo Mahmoud Gebril, former Prime Minister of Lybia Sandro Gozi, Member of the European Parliament, President of the Union of European Federalists, former Under-secretary of state for European Policies Ulrike Guerot, Head of Department for European Policy and the Study of Democracy, Danube University Krems, Austria; Founder of the European Democracy Lab in Berlin István Hegedűs, Chairman Hungarian Europe Society Aldo Kaslowski, Chairman of Organik holding, former Vice-President of Tusiad (Association of Turkish Business) Guillaume Klossa, writer, founder of EuropaNova and Civico Europa, Sherpa to the reflection group on the future of Europe 2020-2030, former Director at the European Broadcasting Union Anna Krasteva, New Bulgarian University and CERMES, editor-in-chief of Journal Southeastern Europe Peter Jambrek, President of the New University, Slovenia Cristophe Leclerque, Founder of Euractiv Network, President of Euractiv Foundation Jo Leinen, Former MEP, former President of the Spinelli Group, the European Movement International, the Union of European Federalists Francesca Longo, President Società Italiana di Scienza Politica Paolo Magri, Director Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionali (ISPI) Sylwia Majkowska-Szulc, University of Gdańsk, Secretary of the Board of the Polish Association of European Law Fabio Masini, University of Rome 3, Co-director International Centre for European and Global Governance (CesUE), Fabienne Peraldi-Leneuf, Sorbonne Law School Director of the Franco-Italian double degree Co-Director of the M2 International Lawyer, Giovanni Moro, Chairman of Cittandinanza Attiva Kalypso Nicolaidis, Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford Claus Offe, Hertie School of Governance in Berlin Gianfranco Pasquino, University of Bologna, Johns Hopkins Bologna Center and Fellow of the Accademia dei Lincei Otto Pfersfmann, Directeur d’Etudes Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales / Lier-FYT Paris Mikolaj Pietrzak, Dean of the Warsaw Bar Association of Advocates Gaetano Quagliarello, Luiss University, Senator Lia Quartapelle, Research Fellow at ISPI, Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Dimitrij Rupel, Nova univerza Ljubljana; former Foreign Minister of Slovenia (1990-1993, 2000-2008) Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and a Member of its Committee on Global Thought, which she chaired till 2015 Giuseppe Scognamiglio, Chairman East-West European Institute Richard Sennett, OBE FBA; Visiting Professor, The Senseable Cities Lab, MIT; Chair, Council on Urban Initiatives, United Nations Habitat; Chair, Theatrum Mundi, Ingrid Shikova, Head of Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence European Studies Department, Sofia University “St.Kliment Ohridski” Enzo Siviero, Rector eCampus University, Architect Christoph Strecker, Judge, Founder of MEDEL (Magistrats Européens pour la Démocratie et les Libertés) Allain Terrenoire, Président de l’Union Paneuropéenne Internationale Arnaud Thysen, Director European Business Summit Nathalie Tocci, Director Istituto Affari Internazionali, former Advisor to VP/HR Federica Mogherini Nadia Urbinati, Columbia University, Andrea Biondi Director Centre of European Law Dickson Poon School of Law Kings College London, Peter Schiffauer Deputy Director Dimitris-Tsatsos-Institut for European
Constitutional Sciences Fernuniversität in Hagen, Livio Vanghetti, Executive Vice President of Philip Morris Anna Wessely, ELTE University of Budapest, President of the Hungarian Sociological Association, Editor-in-chief of BUKSZ – The Budapest Review of Books Vladimiro Zagrebelski, Carlo Alberto College in Turin, former Judge of the European Court of Human Rights Bénédicte Zimmermann, Directrice d’études at the EHESS Paris, Susanna Cafaro Università del Salento, Vice-President of the Italian Society of International Law, Fabienne Péraldi Leneuf Ecole de droit de la Sorbonne, Nico A. Heller Democracy School, Paolo Garonna Università LUISS G. Carli, Elisa Baroncini Università di Bologna, Pietro Gargiulo Università di Teramo,  Gianpaolo Maria Ruotolo Università di Foggia, Luigi Daniele Coordinatore del Dottorato di ricerca
in diritto pubblico Università Roma “Tor Vergata”, Annamaria Viterbo, Università di Torino, Vesselin Popovski Professor Vice Dean Jindal Global Law School Haryana, India.

 

Connecting the dots: how a “supranational” path led me to the Supranational Democracy Dialogue.

Posted on by Susanna Cafaro

Most of the experiences I had in my life (in researching, teaching, advocacy) point to this specific direction: governance beyond the State.

Advocacy came first. Since I was a teenager, I played a leading role in the Young European Federalists (JEF).

It was only after I was awarded a Ph.D. grant from the University of Bologna that I had to put aside that experience (apparently to prove to be a “serious” researcher) according to the suggestion of my mentor prof. Paolo Mengozzi. My Ph.D. thesis, which became my first book was dedicated to the economic and monetary union, a brand new topic after the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty. The focus of my whole work (in the Nineties) was the lack of economic governance in Europe or, to be precise, the need for a common fiscal policy, a topic still relevant nowadays (and the topic for another book later on).

From there I moved to research on the ways and tools for Europe and the Eurozone to speak with one voice in the international fora, so I came to study the IMF and the World Bank (and to the governance of the two was dedicated my second book). The external relations of the EU are a recurrent topic in my record of publications, with two specific focuses: representation in international organizations and euro-Mediterranean relations, between bilateral and multilateral options.

Only later on I realized how my federalist starting point was influencing my research path: wherever I see a governance problem I start to investigate representation, legitimacy, accountability, budget. And I’m drawn to governance issues like a moth to a flame!

Once realized that, I went straight to the point, publishing on democracy in international organizations, on accountability, on citizenship in the European democratic formula.

 I think that not less interesting and diverse has been my experience in advocacy.

In 2009, with a group of colleagues, I founded the think tank The Group of Lecce which, on the long wave of the global financial crisis, started releasing communiques on how to improve the governance of financial institutions.

 In the same period, I started attending the Civil society policy forum convened twice a year by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on the occasion of their annual and spring meetings and I was invited to join the Bretton Woods Committee.

Starting a blog on “Supranational Democracy” in 2015 was the next step.

It seemed quite natural, two years later, to make the research line converge with the advocacy path and I convened a big international conference to invite scholars and people from academia and institutions to discuss with civil society leaders. All the networks I had previously attended mixed up in this new adventure.

So, in 2018 I have been the organizer – with a great supporting team- of the Supranational Democracy Dialogue (SDD), a dialogue among scholars, civil society and creative thinkers on democratic solutions to global challenges. the story of that experience is in a little documentary film.

As the first edition of the dialogue was a big success and created a platform of like-minded scholars and activists, I am now working on the second edition. I can count on an interesting and diverse network collected around this idea that the world needs some kind of democratic global governance.  

Eventually, this year, I was awarded a Jean Monnet Chair whose title is “Legal Theory of European Integration: a Supranational Democracy Model”. A sort of blessing, for me, after so many years of dedication to an idea which was, for many, plain crazy.

I think that building governance beyond the state and reinventing democracy for the human family is the big challenge of the XXI century, or maybe of the second millennium.

Spiritual people call it oneness: realizing that we are all one, connected and interdependent.

Pragmatical scholars move from different premises: issues are nowadays global (global warming, sea pollution, water scarcity, migration waves, trade wars, threats to peace and security); global institutions are imperfect, as they were created many decades ago for a world of sovereign nations which look nowadays inadequate (both the nations and the global institutions). Globalization of finance, markets, social media calls forth globalization of rights.

No matter which position you move from, you can get to this awareness moved by the mind or the heart. You can come from international law, economics or maybe philosophy, anthropology, a religious belief, or a psychological search… the supranational democracy dialogue could be the place for you.

The panelists come from so many different experiences that nobody expects to teach or to hold the truth, and everybody has for sure something to learn. What is expected is a phenomenon of cross-pollination among ideas, cultures, and paths.

The next edition of the SDD will be in Brindisi, on April 16-17. The program is still a work in progress, it will be posted shortly. If you want to attend or to receive the network newsletter please send an email to info@supranationaldemocracy.net.

See you there xxx

Susanna