European patriotism passes through the stomach

The European Union lives between agony and ecstasy. An agony related to the economic crisis and the trust of the citizens in the EU institutions, but also an enthusiasm linked to the recent national elections.

After a distressing year 2016, the March elections in the Netherlands have isolated Geert Wilders, and the “Brussels option candidate” has won the French Presidential election. Germany is going to the polls in autumn, and has the choice being between Angela Merkel and the mega-European Martin Schulz. "Europe is in good hands in Germany", as they say...

2017 is crucial to bring the EU to reality. There are no big words, but there is a need to a gradual reform of the European institutions, a necessary evolution ... Brussels' voices anticipate a consolidated Europe built around the euro. We will have a euro area budget, EU taxation, a European economic policy, and possible Industrial European champions. There will be no more speeds, we will have a big European Union, but also a hard core called Euroland...

The European Union understands that an approach based on European values ​​is good, but that is not enough to heat its citizens. It gradually comes back to the idea of ​​Europe from the 1950s, when the project of "peace and prosperity" is being redeemed on the continent. The resumption of the France-Germany economic binomial, or, more preferably, Germany-France, is the desideratum of the current European construction. The EU is experiencing economic revival through the German industry, industrial revolution (Industry 4.0), through Macron's European vision, through the gradual transformation of Brexit into advantage. With the departure of the UK from the EU, the European Union returns to the matrix of bilateral co-operation, but it also gradually progresses to an advanced European integration.

Europeans are bored with complex projects coming from the Brussels laboratories, which end up only as papers. If the European Union is to restructure in order to have concrete answers to the current crises, it will have a chance of survival; it will even become a global model. But, if at the December 2017 Summit we will have the same story, the "domino Brexit" effect will be triggered, we will witness the demolition of the single currency, an implosion of the community structures...

The time of the small steps and half measure has passed for Europe...

Dan LUCA / Brussels