Two-speed Europe changes its geometries. How many times have we heard this expression, double speed? Only now it takes on a different meaning. A quarter of a century ago, when work was being done in Brussels to create the euro, the double speed represented for Italy the risk of remaining outside the single currency not by choice, like Great Britain for example, but for lack of the necessary financial requirements. The same pattern arose again at the beginning of the 1910s, when the sovereign debt crisis hit the Mediterranean countries, which at a certain point seemed destined to break away from the group of the most virtuous. In both of these moments, the leading nation for those traveling at high speed was Germany, the locomotive of Europe and as such always first in terms of speed.
Now, at the dawn of the second quarter of a century, double speed remains, but the Germans have moved into the slow group. It seems incredible, but it is so and it is not us who say it, but the ECB, the European Central Bank, which has its headquarters in Germany, in Frankfurt. And that in his latest bulletin, regarding the third quarter growth in the euro area, equal to +0.2%, he writes: “It continued to be characterized by notable differences between the major economies of the euro area”, with +0.6% in Spain, +0.5% in France and +0.4% in the Netherlands, and a GDP “remained unchanged in Germany and Italy”. A dynamic that finds its broad explanation in “a positive contribution from domestic demand, while net exports were more limited”. In other words, consumption and services are doing well, exports and the manufacturing sector are suffering. The former locomotive of Europe is therefore slowing down to the point of starting to move at a second speed compared to southern countries that were regularly behind it, such as France and Spain.
Unfortunately we Italians don’t have anything to celebrate. It’s not like in the legendary Italy-Germany football matches, where when the stakes were high we always won. Nor is it about taking some economic revenge. The reality is that the current stagnation of German manufacturing is reflected precisely in the low Italian growth, representing one of the causes: the industrial supply chains of the two countries are super connected and the problems of one – think of the car industry, how much Italy is in a German car and vice versa – become those of the other. So, this time too we find ourselves on the side of the slower speed. The fact that Germany is also there cannot be a consolation.
However, there is a positive side: now that the German locomotive has also stopped and that it will go back into debt to meet military expenses, perhaps
it will look a little more like the Italian economy. And, in this key, decisions at European level will be more shared and less unbalanced in favor of Berlin’s interests. Starting with the review of the green deal.