Berlin, May 7, 2001

I am really pleased and honored to have this opportunity to explain here, at your University, why Italy wanted the Nice Declaration with Germany: indeed, the Declaration on the future of Europe is a sort of joint production "italo-tedesca".

Why the Declaration, then? And what sense do we give both to the procedure envisaged (a "wide democratic debate") and to the aim of it -- a more integrated Europe? The two dimensions have to be seen together. A wide democratic debate is needed (badly needed) in order to make the aim -- the more integrated Europe, the Charter of Europe -- credible and supported by the necessary public consensus across our Continent. Europe, to become more integrated, needs first of all the Europeans, their support. This is why I have decided to deal with this issue -- which I consider indeed a fundamental one - in my talk today.

But let me say, before, that it is not by chance that I happen to be here speaking of the future of Europe. As all you know, it was just one year ago that the German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, gave his well-known Quo Vadis Europa speech at Humboldt -- a speech which brought once again to the fore of the European debate the issue of the fěnalité politique of the integration process. This was essential to give the necessary momentum to a debate which -- for a long time -- has remained a "silent" one.

Since then, there has been a deep convergence between Italy and Germany upon the crucial issues of the future of Europe, the final aims of our work; and also -- I must add -- upon the daily difficulties of the process Both the Presidents of our two Republics, President Rau and President Ciampi, have repeatedly expressed their views on the future of Europe; and even more recently Chancellor Schroeder -- at least as leader of the Party -- gave his views on the issue, defining a position which finds large consensus in my country. Let me explain, then, the reasons why we consider -- in light of the Nice declaration -- both the procedure and the aim equally essential. To understand it, we have to go back to the traditional parterns of the European life: to what they meant successfully or many years.

National problems and European common solutions: the confidence crisis Europe was built -- as it is rightly, even if brutally, shown in historical works -- probably more upon national interests leading to common solutions, than upon shared European views. The Founding Fathers certainly had a European vision; yet, they were acting under the pressure of domestic needs that couldn't find appropriate solutions at the domestic level. Therefore, Europe became the frame within which these domestic pressures could find the necessary and most appropriate replies.

Think of my country -- the Common Market was the solution to the post-War unemployment problem. We needed tour million jobs in the '50s, and the solution came, as I just said, from market integration. Or think of your country -- of Germany -- that was able to restore, precisely through Europe, her international legitimacy after the War. Think, more recently, of financial and monetary instability in the ‘70s - it was the EMS that gave us the appropriate frame to deal with that instability.

In brief: Europe as a solution for national problems worked. And it worked on the basis of two premises, combined together. On the one side, the members of the European family were few: transform the intergovernmental approach into an integrated solution was thus rather easy. On the other side -- and that is no less important -- domestic opinions in most of our countries were ready to see Europe as a concrete solution to their problems.

Now both these premises have changed. First of all, Europe is not any longer perceived as a benefit per se, as it was many years ago by most of the Europeans. For decades, Europe has always been the promise of something more. Now it is more and more perceived as the risk of something less, especially less security -- less social protection under the strain of financial readjustment; less job security under the impact of globalization and migrations (not because of Europe, obviously, but because people think that this is partially due to Europe); less personal security as transnational crime grows, and less food safety as CAP has generated major distortions. But also less of existing resources and less, even, of our respective national identities -- and both as likely effects of enlargement. For many citizens, the Union seems no longer able to offer that wider protective shield that individual member States, for their part, have equally ceased to offer.

Years ago, in brief, it was almost self-evident than the costs of non-Europe were higher than the costs of Europe. Nowadays, many people think that the costs of Europe may be higher. I am not saying, obviously, that there is a viable national reply to these anxieties. I simply say that we have to cope with them, that we have to take them into account and very seriously. If you look at what Eurobarometer surveys tell us, you realise that a confidence crisis does exist. European citizens simply no longer believe -- but for a minority among them (Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands) -- that they extract substantial individual benefits from membership.

This new attitude may appear as just another paradox if we think of the formidable strides forward that the Union has made lately: Europe has become a beacon of democracy and, at the same time, the mother-house Eastern European countries are eager to return to (and are actually returning to). The single currency is now in place, which epitomizes more than anything else the accomplishment of the paramount goal of the Community: market integration.

Yet, a confidence crisis is there. Europe is beginning to look like a constraint -- or a cost -- rather than a benefit. The figures change from poll to poll, are different from one country to another (there is no such thing as a European opinion, we clearly have fragmented national public opinions), but a fairly clear tendency now shows, that implies a lower level of legitimacy for European institutions.

At the same time -- and this is the second, important motive for change -- the wider EU membership makes it more difficult to-transfer the solutions of domestic problems at the European level, turning intergovernmental cooperation into cooperative European solutions. Whenever we meet, in our Councils, we find this exercise more and more complex. The traditional patterns, as I said before, allowed us this sort of transformation of intergovernmental into Communitarian. Now, the Communitarian is more and more difficult to acquire, and we are becoming more and more intergovernmental.

To offer you a sort of "testimony" of my attendance in the European Council, my perception, being there, is that national solutions find a final compromise once each of us gets a piece. And what remains for Europe? Sometimes, nothing. Thus, the traditional patterns are still there; but the outcome is becoming different -- the sense of it, the taste of it. We do not find, any longer, common solutions to our national problems; we find instead pieces of national solutions at the common level. Here are the terms of our problem: the traditional patterns are still there but they do not work anymore. If we want the European machinery to give us European solutions, we have to change those patterns. We really have to restore the Communitarian method; and that probably also requires a new European architecture.

The problem, the paradox if you wish, is that we have to restore the Communitarian method precisely when the demand for Europe is much lower than it was years ago. It is a sort of contradiction but we have to confront it: There is a higher need for Europe; there is a lower demand for Europe.

How to increase the demand for Europe The first point to solve, then, is how to increase the demand for Europe. I emphasize this point for a simple reason. If I say "well, l'm sure that I have to go toward a more integrated Europe, l'm sure that my traditional system doesn't work anymore," I also have to convince others that this is necessary. Otherwise, I go ahead, I define my solution, then I turn my head to look back and I discover to be alone.

People at the moment tend to think -- they are wrong! -- but they tend to think that their domestic problems can be better solved within their domestic walls. They tend to ask for protection at the national level, more than asking for European solutions. Thus, our work -- between now and the 2004 -- is to become convincing prophets of the badly needed more integrated Europe. Without prophets, the new religion might find itself at risk, even though this religion has a truth. We need -- it is certainly true -- a new Europe.

That's why I say that "Europe Needs Europeans." If we want a new Europe, people have to be convinced about the Europe they need. People have to be convinced not just of the "how" of the future Europe (the new institutional architecture), but of the "what for" (the new common policies needed). And the "what for" is precisely the response to what makes them anxious about the future. It is the reply to their most profound demands -- the first one being, as I said before, the search for security in a comprehensive sense.

This area -- security -- is where Europe has been successful until now and can be successful in the future. We know all too well what Europe was until a short while ago. Above all, and in short, it was a superb way of defending Europeans from themselves: the building up -- via economic integration -- of what we call, in Karl Deutsch's words, a "security community". Peace among our countries, giving history a totally different sense: we fought against each other for centuries, we are now the happy island of the word. Whatever conflict might arise between two European countries, this conflict will never again lead us to the use-of force but just to procedures of dispute settlement, which are now standardized. What this means is security: people who live in this part of the world feel safe. If they start feeling partially unsafe, now, it is precisely because the island is not an island anymore - opening its doors, its gates, letting other in.

I am, and I have always been, a strong supporter of enlargement. Enlargement means a return to Europe of countries that belong to Europe. As far as I am concerned, this is the point: full stop. However, to persuade our people, to contrast their fears, I have to add that enlargement will bring, in the end, net political and economic gains. First of all, enlargement is indeed the most effective policy of regional stabilization that the Community/Union is carrying out. Being afraid of enlargement -- which is certainly the case for one section of public opinion in Europe -- means being blind to the fact that what has happened in Western Europe over the past decades is happening in the countries that are about to join the Union. Should the EU become a closed shop, an exclusive and restricted club, it would become less secure and would lose its outward-looking drive of expansion -- which is one of its historical strengths.

There is a second reason why I have always been in favor of enlargement: it provides a fundamental incentive for internal reform, as already happened in the past. In the past the Community got more and more enlarged: six, nine, twelve, fifteen -- so the process of enlargement is a familiar one for all of us. Don't forget that enlargement was in the past the strongest incentive for domestic reforms for the applicant countries. The same is occurring now, which is in our own interest - in the interest of our own economies. In brief: it is only by extending the areas of stability at our borders that we can achieve greater security and meet the deep-seated anxieties of public opinions at home. Here lies much room to define common European interests alongside national or local ones.

"We" and "Us" in Europe: the need for enhanced cooperation First and foremost, to respond effectively to the fears expressed by public opinion regarding migration, Europe's leaders must clearly say and show that purely local or national responses are not viable. Europe needs migration, Europe is aware of it, but Europe doesn't want illegal immigration. We want to have this phenomenon under our control. No individual country can have effective control of the inflows of migrants. Whatever inflows we may want, we need to have a joint-coordination of our policies in relation to this. This is where the prophets are needed: "I want what you want, but you cannot have it by using only your hands. You need the overall European apparatus to get precisely the results you want".

If we are doing something new, something useful in this field, well we are doing it by co-operating with each other, by establishing common rules. It couldn't work otherwise because it would not be effective. Effective migration policy thus requires a mix of European harmonization (just take asylum) and of targeted national policies (linked to labor markets and readmission agreements with the countries of origin). This also applies to the fight against illegal immigration, which forms part of the more general problem of strengthening the Union's third pillar. In this case, once again, we need closer intergovernmental cooperation as much as community-level harmonization.

The same applies to the future of foreign and security policy. The outside world is frequently perceived, and with good reasons, as a threat. And to face the threat, we have to exercise some sort of influence upon what is going on in third countries. Can we really think that each of our countries can individually exercise a sufficient influence on the external world to prevent conflicts from exploding, to prevent the consequences of these conflicts from having an impact upon our countries? Perhaps, some of us still think that this can be true.

I frequently talk to the Chancellor about this and his reply, which I deeply share, is that those of us who still think in terms of "I" are still living in the previous century. If we want to face the challenges of the new centuries, we have to think in terms of "we" and "us". If we want to play a role in relation to the outside world we have to be "we".

None of us can do it as an "I". There is one single "I", perhaps, in the world at the moment, which needs a balance and the balance can come from "us". From none of "us" individually, but from "us". For it, there potentially is strong support in public opinion. Basically, people have to become aware that the ability of individual European States to exert international influence is extremely limited. As a result, individual countries must pool and share sovereignty to play an external role.

This is already happening at the regional level, although it has not been clearly acknowledged but perhaps in the Balkans. Still, neither could we merely consider ourselves as a regional power - as a power, in other words, with a limited, not a global outreach. We have to become more visible and more effective in the Middle East, for example. This is something we have been dreaming of for years but have never seriously tried to do.

Thinking globally may raise, however, touchy issues in Europe: the United Nations Security Council, for instance, sooner or later might be seen in these terms, in terms of "we", instead of in terms of "one" plus "one" plus "question mark".

All this is even more true - but this is even too easy to argue - in the field of economic government: this is the third area, if you like, where we have to demonstrate to our domestic public opinions that we need more Europe, not less of it. Economic government is where more integration is obviously needed. We cannot imagine going one with a single currency without a deeper and wider fěnancial and economic co-ordination. Everybody thinks so and everybody, I must say, is convinced of it in Europe.

Now, these are areas that demonstrate the enormous need for Europe. How to convince our fellow Europeans? If we speak of the "how", we can say that before the final "how" (the future, and more fully integrated Union) there is an intermediate "how", that we have prepared in Nice: and that is enhanced cooperation.

I don't think that it makes sense for us to jump over the present, think only of the future and ignore that, due to the work of Germany and Italy -- I must repeat it, because it is true -- in Nice we have decided both a declaration on the future of Europe and how to go from here to there. How to go from here to there, also implies to make use, as much as possible, of enhanced cooperation - that Nice makes much simpler than was in the past.

Nice has made some of the aspects of our common life more complicated than they were, but one crucial road to the future -- enhanced cooperation -- has been simplified. The areas where Europe is most needed, can now be tested as areas for more of Europe through enhanced cooperation. This is an essential instrument for giving evidence, to our public opinion, that common solutions can work precisely in the fields they most care about. And this is an instrument that we have to test if we really want that the future of Europe works.

We have to be clear on this. We need both enlargement and more integration. More integration in an enlarged Europe cannot be implemented by expecting all of the new members to be at the same level, and at the same speed as others.

Therefore, enhanced cooperation gives the system an essential degree of flexibility, allowing countries that are ready for a further step to do it. And the others will follow. What is essential, for us, is not to prevent anybody -- able and willing -- from entering an area of enhanced cooperation. But no less essential is that the countries that are ready to do it could open up the new processes of integration in the areas where Europe is more needed. And if enhanced cooperation requires eight countries ready for the new experiment, you can previously have before cooperation between two countries, three countries, that pave the way. So, I clearly see a process by which we can immediately start with areas of mutual co-operation - and we are already doing it - that pave the way to an enhanced cooperation in the sense of the Treaty, which is the stage opening the gate to the more integrated Europe of the future.

I will put forward two examples. Over the past years Italy has promoted the establishment of multinational forces to patrol and control the external borders of the Union. This is an issue of decisive importance with a view to enlargement: for when the new external borders of the Union move eastwards -- to countries which, in this particular sphere, are defined as "fragile" -- the existence of multinational forces will make it possible to assist the new entrants. And this will be in the general interests of the Union. We have already opened up this path by signing bilateral cooperation agreements with Germany, Spain, Greece: but the objective is, of course, to further extend this mechanism and to make it an area of "enhanced cooperation".

Still with regard to the third pillar, Italy and the United Kingdom have promoted a joint initiative against the trafficking of people through the Balkan routes. This is a crucial area for aw citizens' perception of internal security. In this case, too, Italy and the United Kingdom have worked on the basis of a bilateral agreement, but aim at extending such cooperation on a broader EU basis.

This is an interesting methodological point for the construction of new areas of integration. If you like, we might call it a "horizontal" method, working through bilateral intergovernmental agreements to build forms of enhanced cooperation which, as you know, require a larger number of participants (at least eight) and give the Commission a key role.

But the opposite method, the "vertical" one, may also be useful. Take for instance the problem of the transitional provisions on the free movement of persons. In this case we have a common EU negotiating position (entailing a transition period of seven years) which essentially meets the concerns of the countries that feel most exposed on the labor market front (Germany and Austria). But we have decided to apply it flexibly, in the sense that countries that do not foresee negative repercussions of a similar kind on their own labor markets may decide to suspend the transition period in their bilateral relations with new "entrants". A survey carried out by the Prime Minister's office on the effects of enlargement for Italy shows a much less dramatic situation, even though Italy receives huge migration flows from the Balkans (rather than from Central and Eastern Europe) and from Romania (which will probably not be in the first wave of enlargement). At all events, what matters is that if we need -- and we do -- to meet the concerns of public opinion through European co-operative responses, the only way in which we can create a consensus around more integration, in an enlarged Europe, is to combine harmonization and flexibility.

More Europe and less Europe Let me make, thus. a further step. In some respects, more Europe must also mean less Europe. This too has to be clearly stated if we want to meet ongoing concerns.

People don't want any decision on any matter to be taken at the European level. Our effort to demonstrate that Europe is needed is limited to issues that go beyond our domestic jurisdictions. The same cannot be seriously demonstrated for areas where the decisions are unavoidably national. Therefore, we have to be very sharp on this: Europe doing fewer things more effectively; a more effective Europe in fewer areas.

More of Europe and less of Europe at the same time. Sometimes, the "more" might be needed in areas where Europe is not involved enough nowadays. The examples I made before were mostly taken from the second and the third pillar. This is quite interesting and reflects an evolution. But it makes sense, because people expect Europe to defend them precisely in relation to these areas. Thus, in the future, this differentiation among "pillars" will have to fade.

But of course there are other areas in which, on the one side, some competencies have to be given back to the States, while in some other areas, where the shared roles of Europe and individual Member States are unavoidable, the decision-making process has to be simplified. Some rightly speak of the need for a "disentangle." : disentangling the role of the Community and the Nation States inside decision-making processes that involve both. Because there is great confusion -- a waste of time, lack of transparency -- and people dislike Europe precisely for this reason. They don't understand who is deciding what; and why it takes so much time to have a decision. This is also essential if we think of the entering countries, and of the best use they can make of the now too rigidly allocated Community funds. We have to introduce more flexibility. Too many prescriptions are coming from the European level as to the use of this money (regional and cohesion funds): larger responsibilities are to be left to the nation States or to the regions, provided that the use they make of their money does not distort competition.

In the case of structural policy, thus, countries which benefit from "cohesion" funds could get more spending autonomy at the regional level, provided that clear and fair criteria are previously set at the EU level and cohesion policy remains a fundamental aim of the Union. In other words, the competence of the EU in this fields should be regulatory rather than executive. One other sector where a reassessment of competencies could be considered is Common agriculture. policy. It is clear that the model needs an overall reassment.

More stress has to be put on food security, protection of the environment, trade liberalization. It could be useful to introduce, for instance, partial, national co-financing of the CAP, which would have the merits of giving back responsibility to the local actors, reducing at the same time the burden of the CAP on the community budget.

Defining a sphere of autonomous competencies for the member States looks easier, thus, than a proper re-nationalization - and more in line with the multi- level system we live in.

In conclusion, I see a main task from here to the Conference in 2004: demonstrate the "what for", demonstrate that Europe is needed, and demonstrate that people tend to ask for a kind of protection from their national governments that they can have only from Europe. And therefore, my original idea was and has remained that we really need a European public sphere with not just Prime Ministers and Ministers, but with the European elites feeling involved in the mission of convincing others.

I consider that this is very important. If you look at Euro-barometers again, you have the clear perception of a sharp division between elites that tend to be very European-oriented and the rest of the people that are more wary of the consequences of the present Europe. Therefore, it would not be wise nor democratic for the elites to immediately rebuild a Europe which is consistent with their wide vision for the future - without firstly fulfil the obligation to convince the others.

What can be done, then, to insert effectively this necessary role - the role of "prophets for the future of Europe" - inside the procedures that we are setting up from now to the Conference of 2004?

How to proceed on the road 2004: the steering committee proposal The Nice Declaration speaks of "wide-ranging discussion with all interested parties", which is meant to include national parliaments, civil society and so on. And it is obvious that, as of today, the discussion cannot rely on a European demos -- that does not exist yet, as the sharp differences of attitude across European public opinion demonstrate. But it must certainly be used to stimulate a better use and a more effective responsibility of the already existing European "public sphere" or "Offentlichkeit". This is the first major opportunity we have for doing so.

Let us start, once again, with what we know from recent experience:
a) treaty review, has revealed all its shortcomings: the "joint-decision trap", combined with the occasional political contingency that pushes the IGC method, as an institutionalized procedure of semi-permanent negotiators to postpone decisions to the following IGC, mostly leads to lowest common denominator solutions. This method is to be reformed, taking account of the fact that the member states remain the "Masters of the Treaties";
b) the Convention method, as a preparatory phase for a more streamlined and focused IGC, proved useful for the drafting of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. We are nevertheless well aware of the main objection: for most countries, the Convention is not acceptable -- especially in the very sensitive areas of the Nice Declaration -- because, by delivering a single document, it excessively reduces the room of maneuvering of the European Council.

The result of this "take or leave" is that we endanger the binding force of the final document. This is what we got with the Charter, which is really very good; but it is, as we know, a political document. Repeating the same kind of experience for the 2004 Conference would be very gratifying for some of us. At the end, however, the same process might give us a European Constitution accepted again only as a political document. Does it make sense? Rationally speaking, I think that the Convention method could be used in a different way: not to prepare a final outcome already cooked; but to put on the table a range of projects, leaving to the political institutions, at the end, the responsibility of deciding the final architecture. We may thus envisage, as some have already proposed, a method that allows to organize the discussion along functional issues and in different fora. Its advantage would be to conclude with a menu of reasoned options emerging from a process that would automatically include representatives not only from governments but also from the EP and the national parliaments.

c) Finally, we know that the debate on 2004 has started in two directions. On the European side, with the creation of “areas" for discussion (more or less institutional ones, such as the European Parliament, the Commission web site, non-governmental conferences); on the national side, with the setting up of ad hoc committees in national parliaments (Spain) or the creation of composite "reflection groups" led by a government representative(France), or by scheduling parliamentary hearings (Germany).

The choice of opening up the debate in the national parliaments is a response to one of the agenda items on the future of Europe. And much as a debate in national parliaments is indispensable to enhance vertical legitimacy we must ensure that the "wide-ranging discussion" called for by the Nice declaration is not confined within each member State-and therefore organized along purely national lines - or else, the present gap between perceptions of public opinion would remain or get even wider. To organise the wide range discussion as a sort of summing up of national debates might at the end leave things as they are now.

We need a European texture for this debate. We don't have a demos, we have European elites. They have to spend themselves at the European level, not just nation by nation. Consequently, the challenge that lies ahead is how to stir the debate on the Union along functional and cross-national lines.

It is for this reason that I am proposing to set up a sort of "steering committee", that can be useful in organizing this entire setting of intermediate procedure. Its main function would be to give the debate on 2004 a solid cross-national structure along these functional issues I was referring to. Of course, the steering committee should not "bind" the debate, which we want to be extensive and capable of bringing the Union closer to its citizens. On the contrary, it should coordinate the discussion and guarantee that its contents are collected, filtered, summarized and transmitted to all the institutional reference bodies. It could become the interface between the different parties to the debate acting as an inter-institutional and cross-national databank. Its members might hold regular briefings on the state of the discussion in all national parliaments, including -- if necessary, and I think it is necessary -- those of the applicant countries, that we want, if possible, to be part already of the IGC to be held in 2004. We would select the representatives, interlocutors from the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament. Right before the final stage of negotiations, the Steering Committee could deliver a concise report that would become the official 'record' of the whole debate offered to the political institutions.

I must say that unless we do something along these lines, the wide ranging debate we have called for in Nice might remain restricted to national public spheres, and consequently produce insignificant results. What we need, as I said, is to start operating in a European public sphere and cross-fertilize national and institutional discussions.

It seems a minor device, if compared with some of the institutional ambitions that we are setting ourselves, but in the history of European integration apparently minor decisions have often produced major results. Right because I share, I deeply share, the most ambitious final setting that we can envisage for Europe, my problem is how do we get from here to there. If we concentrate on this point, we might make our final aim closer and more feasible, as needed as it is.

Source: Presidency of the Council of Ministers Web site