Re-solidarizing Europe and Defusing the Crisis

1 [Penultimate draft, forthcoming in: Hien, J and Joerges, C (eds.) Responses of European Economic Cultures to Europe’s Crisis Politics: The Example of German-Italian Discrepancies. Proceedings from the Villa Vigoni Conference, pp. 263-268. Robert Schumann Center, EUI: Florence. Full ebook available here] Maurizio Ferrera Carlo Burelli Re-solidarizing Europe and Defusing the Crisis The very existence of the European Union is today under attack by an increasingly virulent Euroscepticism. In our view, the prime root of this “deep” political crisis is the sharp misalignment between the new nature of the EU after the establishment of EMU, its authority structure, and the normative order which underpins cooperation and the “sharing code” among the member states. Dangerous centrifugal forces feed on the apparent lack of awareness among national and European politicians about the “deep” causes of prolonged instability and existential threats. Yet survey evidence signals that a “silent majority” would be potentially available to support a far-sighted project of institutional reforms and of solidarization of the EU.