The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has presented this week the design of the college of commissioners that she proposes for her second term. While waiting for the confirmation processes of the candidates to be processed, the report presented by Mario Draghi is above all looming over the start of the new European political year. It is a pleasant feeling to follow the debate – with support and criticism – on this matter. set of proposalsWhether one agrees with it or not, it is difficult not to recognize his merit for his admirable broad vision and depth of reflection.
But if you look away from this debate for a moment, you’ll be amazed at the abyss that opens up to the ground of national policies, mired in squalid swamps. In France, a zombie government is taking shape, the result of a systemic failure, serious mistakes by Macron, intransigence on the part of the left, and short-sightedness. In Germany, the traditional parties are reacting desperately to the rise of the ultras. The social democrat Scholz and his green and liberal partners have opted to activate border controls, while the Christian Democrats have advocated nothing less than flatly rejecting all Syrian and Afghan asylum seekers. In Italy, incomprehensibly in view of the overwhelming majority it has, it is difficult to discern exactly what the Meloni government is doing. The little that can be discerned generally provokes, except among the ultra-right, rejection and concern. Not so the leader of the Spanish Popular Party, who has travelled on a pilgrimage to Rome, praising Meloni’s immigration policy. Alas, Spanish politics is also not going beyond the very short-sighted. It gives the impression that at any moment it could drown. The sad list could go on.
What is missing is the long-term approach, the perspective, the fundamental vision, the calm debate. Of course, responsibilities must be determined; the opposite is populism and anti-politics. The extreme right is the main political problem in Europe – and the West – one that in some cases threatens the quality of democracy; some left-wing radicalisms have greatly poisoned the climate. In the group of supposed moderates, the petty-moral tactics of the conservatives – and, be careful, because the CDU is already there – stand out, causing serious damage; but only the most fervent supporters of social democrats and liberals do not see that, in many cases, they already accumulate very serious responsibilities.
Given these premises, there is not only a problem of operational paralysis due to fragmentation, entrenchments and tacticism. It is also that the political debate remains embedded most of the time at ground level. We can console ourselves with the fact that we have not yet begun to dig to reach the subsoil of Trump’s rhetoric according to which Haitian immigrants eat kittens in Ohio – rhetoric that is perhaps the place at the political antipodes of the Draghi report. But the truth is that in some cases in Europe we are not far from that. Not only with terrifying campaign videos from the German far right reminiscent of Aryan supremacism. But also with a plethora of highly corrosive insinuations and trivialization of public language coming from supposedly moderate parties.
The question, then, is how to steer the debate and action towards higher levels – and ensure that it stays there. Draghi’s report is a technical report, and politics is something else, you can see that. No doubt. But it doesn’t have to be so low. It has to be raised. The task is arduous. Perhaps he should start by realising his own responsibilities.
