Because there is not much to celebrate with Draghi and Macron’s new EU policy statement

No acceptance of European policy errors, vague references to reforming the Stability Pact, and an emphasis on current public spending (should it stay under control or be limited?…). Giuseppe Littori’s comment

Mario Draghi and Emmanuel Macron chose the start day for Christmas Eve financial times (Later translated in Corriere della Sera) their statement to reform the rules governing budget policy of member states. We are talking about the complex interweaving of the rules born in 1997 with the Stability and Growth Pact and amended in 2012-2013 with other regulations that go under the name of the two- and six-package package, as well as the combined fiscal treaty.

We are talking about a whole set of tools that made the eurozone the planet area, among the advanced economies, with the lowest growth.

“Vaste!” General Charles de Gaulle would have commented at the end of the reading. Indeed – paradoxically acknowledging that the reaction to the economic crisis caused by the lockdowns was essentially what was decided and implemented by nation-states, whose debt was bought in abundance by the European Central Bank – they acknowledge that the challenges of the coming years require new and new goals. Tools.

They are forced to admit that ecological transformation cannot be tackled in skis, armed with a bucket and a shovel. The investments required are huge and require effort that cannot be managed with tools that are 20 years old.

However, when one approaches “pars construcens”, one always returns to the old, outdated paradigms of the past, which completely miss the point:

“There is no doubt that we need to reduce our debt levels. But we cannot expect to do so through tax increases or unsustainable cuts in social spending, nor can we stifle growth through impractical budget adjustments. Instead, our strategy is to keep recurrent public spending in check through reasonable structural reforms. Just as we have not allowed rules to hinder our response to the pandemic, in the same way they must not prevent us from making all the necessary investments.”

Once again, we admit that those rules”They stifled growth with impractical fiscal adjustmentsAnd again, this happens without the slightest admission of guilt for past decisions. The word “sorry” is not in their vocabulary.

But not only. Rather, they dare to repeat the usual mantra of cutting public spending. This time is limited to current account expenditures only (covered by the “friendly” translation), because the indebtedness space must be reserved for investment spending. The model should be the EU’s next generation model, a slow and complex tool that, a year and a half after the decision was made, is still struggling to cash out the principal and will come to a level well below the expected 750 billion. In short, we are in the process of reviving the goodwill that has followed each other for years: excluding investment expenses from the account. nothing new. We used the word “cuts” not by chance. On the Corriere della Sera, translated “Palazzo Chigi’s translation” (it’s strange how the main Italian newspaper doesn’t find someone to do an independent translation) translates the English verb “curb” to “keep under control.” When, with the consent of at least a dozen English speakers whom we consulted, the translation is ‘contain’, ‘retreat’, ‘limit’, ‘stem to reduce’. In short, something that is trending more towards downward pressure than maintaining it at a certain level. Something different, albeit not exciting, about the official translation, which was licensed precisely in the most sensitive section of the entire article.

Indeed, if, years later, it is believed that the solution lies only beyond the ruse of the auditor (current expenditures or investment with recurring fruition over time?), then the fix simply does not exist. Are better salaries for teachers, university researchers, hospital doctors, current spending or investment? Do they really want us to fall into this ridiculous and confusing accounting classification? Did they think they were hiding it by sweetening the translation?