Currency, Governance, Federalism. What Perspectives for a Renewed Democracy in Europe?
by Francesco Raparelli
pp. 118-139 Issue 17 (9,1) – January-June 2022 ISSN (online): 2539/2239 ISSN (print): 2389-8232 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14718/SoftPower.2021.8.2.6
Abstract
The economic crisis that hit in the summer of 2007 in Great Britain and the United States, and then spread to Europe, particularly with the sovereign debt crisis, revealed all the fragility of the single currency. Opponents of the euro celebrated their victory, while sovereignist political forces began to grow in a large part of the continent, gaining widespread electoral support. Thanks to the unconventional action of the European Central Bank, and at the price of harsh austerity policies in the most indebted countries, the euro was saved, while Next Generation EU, a joint plan set up in 2020 to stop to the shock generated by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, envisages for the first time a form of mutualistic debt sharing. Reconstructing the history of the single currency, starting with the EMS set up in 1979, the article highlights the limits of the Eurozone’s economic governance and re-launches, while critically examining it, the federalist proposal of A. Spinelli and E. Rossi, developed during World War II.