Mr. Carlo Casini:

The Lisbon treaty starts by defining itself as one stage of a process. Article 1 of the treaty states that it is the first stage of many in the process of European integration. The problem is defining what the next stages will be. The main problem is to define exactly what we mean regarding the goal we are trying to reach. The view of most of the European Parliament is not in line with what Mr. Fox sees as being the goal of the European Union. I believe most people are leaning towards more union, real union, and more rather than less Europe.

I realise the most urgent problem at the moment is resolving the economic crisis. As Mr. Hafner said, when one's house is on fire, what one needs are firefighters. However, I do not have, nor do I believe anybody else has, a fixed solution to the problem or a preset recipe for solving it. If we did have these and did not use them, obviously that would be criminal. None of the parties, however, either on the left or the right, has a clear-cut solution as to how to solve the problem. All I can do is set out some elements of comment which I believe are worth considering.

First, I do not believe the European Union caused the crisis. It started outside the Union, in the United States. The EU suffered contagion from the banking crisis in the US and we are now trying to combat it. However, the existence of the European Union was not what caused the crisis in the first place. Second, what is certain is that one of the main results of the existence of the EU has been peace. It has been a huge success. Not only is there peace in Europe but the notion of any conflict between our countries is now utterly unthinkable.

There has never been a similar case to this one in all of history. There have been unions of individual countries or empires but these have always come about through constraint or violence. As far as I am aware, there has never been a stage in history when states have got together around the table to discuss matters and talk about the interests of their region. Some people would say that now we have reached the goal of peace the process can come to an end. What we must remember, however, is that the world of today is increasingly globalised; it is not the same as the world of the past. People can travel and move around and there are telecommunications. Think about the enormous economic growth we have seen in countries such as China, India and Brazil, which are now the emerging countries. No country on its own can guarantee prosperity, progress and solidarity for its citizens. Think about the countries to which I just referred and compare their cost of labour to that of countries in Europe. Europe cannot compete with that. No country on its own is able to resist or compete with other countries that have a more or less similar economic model to that of Europe.

I think that solidarity has quite rightly been invoked this afternoon. We need wealthier states to show solidarity towards poorer states and to have solidarity within a country to ensure wealth is correctly shared. We also need solidarity towards our future generations. We cannot pay our debts now at the cost of future generations. We need budgetary discipline to ensure solidarity with the future and not simply be selfishly focusing on today’s generations.

Obviously, we are not going to find a solution to all of these issues today. All we can hope for at the moment is to get to know one another better to discuss matters and hope for future meetings. We should not let mistrust in the European Union win the day. When one thinks of when the Jews left Egypt and crossed the desert, they knew the desert represented the difficult period they had to go through but that through their efforts they would reach the Promised Land. Perhaps Europe is experiencing its time in the desert. However, we cannot lose sight of the ultimate goal that Europe can show the world that its idea of peace, equality, justice and democracy can win through.