The euro crisis, the arrival in Europe of millions of refugees and migrants, Brexit, and terrorist attacks in the heart of European cities: growing populism and nationalism have put Europe to the test, and Europe must now change in order to keep up with the times. Antonio Armellini discusses this issue in a book that analyses the political and economic situation of the European Union.
Antonio Armellini presented his book yesterday, entitled Né Centauro né Chimera. Modesta proposta per un’Europa plurale [Neither centaur nor chimera: modest proposal for a plural Europe], at the Italian Cultural Institute, where he discussed the complex challenges that the EU must confront, in conversation with a high-level panel: John Lloyd, a journalist and contributing editor of the Financial Times; Lucrezia Reichlin, a lecturer in economics at the London Business School and director of research at the Centre for Economic Policy Research; and Paola Subacchi, a senior research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and lecturer at the University of Bologna. The discussion was facilitated by Angela Antetomaso, a journalist and presenter with Class CNBC.
The event was opened with a speech by Pasquale Terracciano, the Italian ambassador to London, who highlighted the delicate nature of the current times and their potential influence on the future of Europe. Armellini then gave an overview of his book, outlining the challenges that Europe is currently facing: an enduring economic crisis, the crisis of traditional state welfare, and obstacles to globalisation. With each successive enlargement, he explained, the EU absorbs new and often contradictory voices, with differences in opinion between those pressing for a federal arrangement and those seeking to limit European integration to free movement of goods and services.
In Né Centauro né Chimera Armellini notes that in order to recover its capacity for initiative, Europe must acknowledge its plural nature and formalise the existence of two Europes: a political Europe, generally supranational, and an intergovernmental one, delimited by the market, each free to act independently, without overlaps or interferences. He that such an arrangement would require concerted negotiations but that there is no alternative if we are to reduce the current disorder and resuscitate Europe’s ambitions and importance. The panel then examined the dynamics and the numerous historical, economic, social and cultural factors that have shaped the situation in which Europe currently finds itself.
The author: Antonio Armellini is an Italian diplomat. He served as spokesman for Altiero Spinelli at the EEC and collaborated with Aldo Moro at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Palazzo Chigi, the government headquarters. He has served in London, Warsaw, Brussels, Addis Ababa, Vienna and Helsinki and was ambassador to Algeria, Iraq, and India and head of the Italian mission to the OECD in Paris.
