Last Friday, the 15th of December, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán effectively prevented the provision of as much as fifty billion euros in financial aid from the European Union for Ukraine, raising many doubts about the support provided by 'Europe when the leaders of the bloc have, so to speak, overcome its opposition, manifested as abstention, to agree on the opening of accession talks with Kyiv.
According to what was possible to learn from the media, from Orbàn's point of view, three of the seven pre-conditions useful for starting negotiations appear to be missing, as they have not yet been respected by Ukraine. These are, in particular, and to be precise, those specific priorities relating to the fight against corruption, the reduction of the influence of oligarchs and the protection of national minorities. Moreover, the Commission's own recommendation to the European Council seemed to have been to bring the negotiating frameworks to adoption only after the "implementation of certain key measures". No question, if only we consider that within the Union, today as yesterday, different sensitivities are confronted, often bringing with them opposing interests and objectives on which the most effective harmonization should be achieved. But, beyond Hungary's position, so decisively expressed by its Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and which could even misalign, on the specific important aspect, relations with the current Italian Prime Minister, the accession of Ukraine , from a purely empirical point of view, and even if we want to ignore the ongoing conflict with Putin's Russia, what consequences could it have considering it on the far from negligible level of political and legal realism? It would not even be necessary to bother the proverbial Lapalisse when anyone among the citizens, even if led to observe that the potential entry into the European Union of a country affected by a war, and whose territory appears to be occupied by the opposing forces, would risk involving the same Union, as well as its Member States, in a context of belligerence with every consequence of the case seen and considered the duty of the Union itself to act in defense of its Members.
But, going even further, and wanting to leave aside this far from negligible circumstance even just for a moment, and concentrating on the very principle that underlies the enlargement of the Union's borders, what should be the driving force given and considering that what should primarily underlying the European giant in its subjective complexity, would it seem to be, and should it be, a communion of intentions, values and objectives that cannot always be said to be achievable? Let's be clear, no one could deny that the European Union was conceived at the time and then came into being above all as an economic community. Whether such action was correct or not is probably not up to anyone to say, especially after many years and with all the conditions changed. With the benefit of hindsight, mutatis mutandis precisely, perhaps it could be said that it would have been better to start a union of cultural importance rather than an economic union, given that men rather than states properly would have had to come together. considered. This is probably the limit of the giant European complex. A limit which to this day would seem to represent the obstacle to be jumped (getting around it would only be a short-term ploy).
On that now historic 7 December of the year 2000, which today seems so distant in time, but profoundly current in its consistency of values, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union was presented in Nice, the Preamble of which underlined precisely the circumstance to in which «the European peoples, in creating an ever closer union among themselves, decided «to share a future of peace based on common values», in the context of which the person, with all his subjective complexity, became the focal center of his own act and your address. What has changed now, if anything has changed, compared to then? Even today, perhaps it would be correct to ask ourselves why there continues to be a lack of any reference to the "Christian roots" of Europe which could well have and could represent a starting point not only on a strictly value level, but also as a prerequisite in the evaluation of potential membership requests in view of enlargement probably not always useful.
Moreover, the Union would only be such in the context of the commonality of values and intentions if we only consider that mere economic evaluations could exist today but not tomorrow. In the current situation, the priority would seem to be closely linked to strengthening the capacity of the European Union itself to concretely express solidarity towards the Member States most affected by the current vicissitudes, including wars. And this, from the perspective of a Europe of the people and for the people, should be the constant and pre-eminent objective. Probably, the next and very close European electoral round should address this issue if we really want to pursue the objective of a citizen-friendly Union.
Giuseppina Di Salvatore
(Lawyer – Nuoro)
