Interview with Sabino Zinni

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The Interwiew was made with Dr. Sabino Zinni, member of the regional Government of Puglia at the 15th of January 2016.

1. Why has your country entered the EU ?

This question needs an authentic interpretation: actually Italy has never entered the EU, it is, indeed, one of the six founding countries that built the EU.

In 1957 six European countries (Italy,France,Germany,Belgium,Holland and Luxembourg) made up the European Community on the basis of previous experiences that had already been implemented: the European Coal and Steel Community and EURATOM. But I mean to focus on the spirit of those years. In thirty years’ time two wars in Europe had made millions of dead: World War I(1914-1918) and World War II(1939-1945). Europeans had been killing each other, meaning by ”Europeans” people from the West(Portugal) to the East(Russia).

Then, during World War II, in several European countries, notably France, Germany, Italy, but also a bit in England, there were politicians worthy the name. All politicians should have this feature: the ability to take a long view, because everyone is able, let’s say, to be a building administrator, with all due respect to the building administrators. But the true politician looks ahead. So natural born politicians, such as Konrad Adenauer in Germany, Alcide De Gasperi in Italy, Schumann and Bonet in France, Winston Churchill in England, thought ahead: what had the wars been? A lack of cohesion, of cultural foundations and ideals of the European spirit, even before than sharing politics. So they thought ahead to prevent future wars, which, with the atomic power, would have been destructive (remember the phrase that Bertrand Russell said: "If and when a third world war will break out, I hope never, if a World War III will break out, I know that will end with the destruction of humanity ").

It is on this idea that the EU was born; good politicians, the ones that have a vision, are pragmatical too; who has the vision it’s also capable of making true choices and these people made it. Having the vision, they wanted to avoid a war and so,they put this idea in practice with a clear choice: the European Union, as we call it now, and at the time was called the European market because they started (here is the reality) from an idea: we must engage on matter of fact issues and add them a wider idea, so let's start from the real, from the interests on which we can easily find a convergence and then we expand gradually. Unfortunately this widening was not up to the task, because in the meantime politicians

2. What is the most important EU value for you ?

It’s difficult to rank them, but the first foundation of Europe is this European spirit, after your project name, and the European spirit is a spirit of civilization formed over the centuries from the meeting of two important cultures: the Jewish one and the Hellenistic one with the grafts of Islam, the culture of Northern Europe and the Slave cultures. All of this has not produced a malfunction but has produced a synthesis and this is the European Spirit.

3. Why have they stopped the European Constitution ?
I think the Constitution should be the root of Europe, and fail to state an European constitution it’s a serious matter, not because the European constitution might help someone or something, but because it might give a vision, a directory on which you can actually walk.

The lack of synthesis on this, it’s a serious failure of European Union and of the politics that the European Union makes. In this way the room left from politics is occupied by the “eurocracy” ,it means it is occupied by the bureaucrats who do their job but don’t have a wider vision because it isn’t up to them.

4. What are the advantages of being part of the European Union for your region/country ?

• trade
• welfare
• economy
• education
• law

BUSINESS: create a single European market out of the former barriers. Imagine if our territory was parted, we would arrive to the Alps and we’d stop ( we couldn’t go to Austria, Germany ,France or anywhere). Imagine, instead, a free place without any barriers. From a business point of view, this is really important. This means: no customs duties, no wasting time and money.

WELFARE: the European welfare depends on another European feature. Europe is founded on four important points: freedom of buying and selling merchandise, freedom of ideas, free circulation of people and capitals. The free circulation of ideas and people produces wellness. Why? Because there is cultural exchange, the possibility to learn and teach one’s own culture to other people. You will wonder: is it worthy making a Union just for this? Not only for this reason. It has produced a central government. So the system of welfare of each state becomes a secondary system, because the most important laws are stated by the UE and this has made EU an inimitable central system.

Talking about economy, we have capitals that move on freely.

If you think about the past you should take into consideration the legislation too. If you have different legislations, as far as capitals are concerned, you need to do a lot of fulfillments to move them from a country to another. So the free circulation of capitals is a really, really important advantage, strengthened by an unique money, the Euro, that, although it isn’t still worthy our expectations, it is an important progress. Maybe someone has forgotten that in Italy, for example, before the Euro, if you wanted to ask for a mortgage in a bank, the average interest rate was about 8/9%. Today, in the worst perspective, you can get a three years fixed rate mortgage, refundable at a year rate of 3.50%. This is thanks to the Euro.

5. What do you think are the main backsides of the EU ?

One of the biggest problems of the EU, is that there isn’t a whole plan; now EU is stuck and it doesn’t go on in the federal state making.

We all need to build a supranational state.

6. What do you think is important to develop a European national identity ?

The idea is that EU should become a single state from the economical point of view, the union is necessary in the competition with the BRICS, we need unity.

7. What kind of European Union would you like to have in the future ?

Europe has to become a state, like Russia, China, South Africa, India, USA or Japan. It’s necessary in order to compete with this states. The union making process from its foundations is fundamental: it is not the mere economy that should give a hint to the Union, but the exchange and the knowledge of each other’s Country.

8. What do you think about the increase of the countries involved in the European Union ?

I think that the critical step to achieve the results is exactly what you are doing here: integrate people from their basis. This may seem in apparent contradiction to what I said a moment ago, but it isn’t. Europe must mobilize because it is necessary also from the economic point of view. But it cannot be economy the crucial starting point for the development of an identity and of an European community; you build a community through a common purpose, as you are already doing, through cultural exchanges. People have to become jealous guardians of their own identity, they mustn’t put their identity in contrast with the others, but they have to share it. An our countryman, from Puglia, a great man, died many years ago, called Don Tonino Bello, used this beautiful quote: "The differences can become a conviction if opposed to each other, but, if shared, they can become an explosive mixture in a positive way" . Europe has all the potential to share differences. Sure, the scenes we see with the “passing the buck” of immigrants does not bode very well, but I'm a dreamer. Finally, I have already mentioned it, but I want to quote it again, the song "Imagine" by John Lennon, written during the Cold War when there was an iron curtain between Moscow and Washington, it says in one of the key steps "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one"; this is the secret and you can make it.

9. Greece cannot remain into the EU because it doesn’t have any money and you said “time is money”, so how long does it take and how much money is needed?

If we have only an European Union economic conception is better that we get back to the lira, it is our death; these questions, bouncing in the newspapers, are false, they engage those who want to continue like this: with a main state which must set the rules. But the coexistence of differences is not like this, it is sharing everything. In the article 3 of our Constitution, which Benigni says is the most beautiful in the world, there is a principle called “substantive equality”: equality is not giving the same to everyone, because if Paolo has one and I have a thousand and one is given to Paolo and one to me, that is the main form of injustice; Paolo has one and must have in proportion to one, I have a thousand and I must have something inversely proportional to what I have; those who most need must have more, those who need less must have less and must give more: this should be the foundation of Europe. If not, we had better go home.