Meeting with the politicians: Martin Schulz e Luis Miguel Poiares Maduro

“Europe is the place to deal with the state of emergency of the human person by rediscovering its history and its values as the exhibition of the Meeting ‘Symphony from the New World’ try to do.” With these words Giorgio Vittadini, president of the Foundation for Subsidiarity introduced the meeting on “people’s Europe, the United Europe” which took place in the living room D5. The speakers were Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament and Luis Miguel Maduro, Minister for Regional Development of the Portuguese Republic. He brought his greeting Pasquale Valentini, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of San Marino. Valentini said that the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon has recognized the peculiarity of the state of San Marino in the history of world wars, “This state has given shelter to many of those who escaped from conflicts.”
The Portuguese minister begins by stating that a good politician, as well as a good business man must be able to anticipate the trends of the future development of the phenomena making consistent choices in the present. Maduro then identified the root of the crisis in Europe into a crisis of democracy, as the common European space creates interdependencies between states. “Fiscal policies of a state, for example – the speaker continued – also necessarily involve other states, but the citizens of the state who suffer the consequences can not affect the choices of the others. In addition there is a problem of democracy in the capital markets, which are of enormous proportions; they can not be regulated by a single country but require a supranational control.
Europe – Maduro continued – is equipped with instruments, such as the fiscal discipline meant to counteract the negative influence that a state may have on another and restore the confidence among markets and states. According to the Portuguese Minister it is essential to create a true European political space and he makes two proposals: to provide Europe with resources and fiscal capacity belonging only to itself, with a budget which European citizens directly contribute to; to reform the European Commission making of it a real European government. Only in this way citizens will be able to choose who should govern them, “and in this way you can restore that confidence in the European institutions that has been lost.”
Martin Schulz began by recalling that the “next president of the European Commission will be elected by the European Parliament after consultation with the various political families that compose it in accordance with the voting results. This possibility stems from the Lisbon Treaty currently in force. “Europe – in the opinion of the German politician – is an idea that is based on solidarity and respect for the individual person. Therefore, “we must distance ourselves from the figures and talk about the respect for the individual.”
Our continent – says Schulz – managed to secure peace, development, cooperation because we are stronger together than alone. “We are the richest in the world but 50 per cent of our young people can not find a job and this is a shame for our civil life.” Schulz told about the story of a Spanish girl with two degrees who was forced to go working in South America because there was no future in her country. The President of the European Parliament recalled that in our continent a great wealth continue to grow, while employment does not take off “and this is a symptom of a poor distribution of wealth that does not give chance to young people.” In addition, the German politician has criticized the financial system and the banks, “who received the money from the ECB at 0.50% and have not invested in the real economy but in financial markets, removing opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses to grow and then to create jobs. “”Today – he continued the speaker – there are people who want to divide Europe between North and South, between those who produce and those who do not produce, among whom is efficient and who is not; in order to prove their thesis they point to the deficit, the recession and high unemployment in some countries, but where do we place Britain if we do these examples? In the South or the North? ”
The German GDP – said the speaker – owes its growth to exports, 60 percent of which ends up in the European market and the majority in Italy. The logical conclusion: “This means that even Germany can not do without Europe.” Therefore Europe “must be strong to enforce the value of human dignity in the world against the exploitation of man that takes place in many parts of the world also in terms of production to such an extent that in many countries children are made to work for 14 hours a day. “Europe’s task in the world is making the value of human dignity valuable. “And – he concluded – we can only do it together”.

(C.C.)