We Need to be Able to Disagree on European Policies. Bruegel Third-Party Papers, January 2006

Pisani-Ferry, Jean. (2006) We Need to be Able to Disagree on European Policies. Bruegel Third-Party Papers, January 2006.

Abstract

This comment by Jean Pisani-Ferry is based on an intervention made at the international conference "Beyond the Crisis: Fifteen Proposals for Italy’s European Policy" organised in Rome by the Istituto Affari Internazionali on 23 and 24 January 2006. The document by Greco, Padoa-Schioppa and Silvestri is a very topical and interesting attempt to define a bipartisan consensus on European issues. It can be looked at through Italian and European lenses. From an Italian perspective, it can be regarded as a skillful initiative to get the major political groupings to accept that there is common ground on Europe so as to maintain a continuous and credible foreign policy. But it is also relevant from a European perspective: the UK, France, the Netherlands and Poland are all countries where Europe is not consensual. The same question continues to come up there and elsewhere: is there a reasonable common ground on Europe? Can there be, should there be a "Brussels consensus" (to use a variant of John Williamson's "Washington consensus")? An attempt will be made here to examine the problem from this angle.