It was a time of enormous promise and energy for this region of Italy--the part of the country that academics often call the "third" Italy; those prosperous, economically dynamic and egalitarian central-northern regions -- anchored by "Red" Bologna -- whose thousands of micro- and small-firms, and mid- to large-sized cooperatives, competed globally in the manufacture of high-end goods, from Ducati motorcycles, to bio-medical devices, supported by progressive social and economic development policies, undergirded by a dynamic of deep citizen participation in economic decision making and democratic life.
For a region like this, the introduction of the Euro, free movement of people and capital throughout the EU and the release of millions of dollars of "structural funds" (large grants to support economic integration through the development of the EU's poorer regions) represented enormous opportunity to further position itself in the global economy, and support balanced social and economic growth.
But even then, the EU always seemed to me like two trains on a collision course. One of those trains -- the EU's highest ideals of democracy, growth and justice -- was rooted in the continent's enlightenment tradition. The other train was fiscal austerity, which was baked into the EU's DNA just as much as it's enlightenment values, and enforced by the less democratic institutions of the Council of Ministers and the European Central Bank.
While the economies of the EU were rapidly growing, it was easy to overlook the specter of austerity -- the straight-jacket of deficit and debt limits placed on member countries as a condition for participation in the Euro. But these limits, set by the Maastricht treaty, acted like a noose around the euro-zone's economies once the Great Recession hit. Rather than pump new money into the economy to kick-start the Eurozone, the EU required that national governments further tighten their belts, only exacerbating the effects of the global recession.
While the United States was quickly pumping money into the economy to prop up banks, bailout the auto industry and enact a major stimulus, EU governments made significant cuts at times of negative growth rates and staggering unemployment.
Add to this mix the worst refugee and migrant crisis since World War Two, and the result is what we see: a system completely unable to produce balanced, equitable growth to support enlightenment ideals in the 21st century, unable to respond to the refugee and migrant crisis in a way consistent with the EU's higher ideals, and unable to act as a meaningful pole in a multi-polar world.
The only credible (though not legitimate) challenge seems to be coming from the right, with no left formation capable of capturing the consensus and imagination of the majority to point a way forward.
The centrist leadership keeps re-hashing Clinton/Blair third way policies in the hopes that something sticks, without addressing what is at the core of peoples' legitimate anxieties, which are more and more expressed as anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim.
Finally, from my perspective, the Brits were never all-in, nor were they particularly good EU partners.
I don't see how this project can move forward without a progressive challenge to austerity, rather than austerity wrapped in leftish language from the mouths of people who used to call themselves communists and socialists.
In the absence of this alternative from the left, the only parties that will have any legitimacy in the eyes of frustrated, unemployed, suffering Europeans, who see their job prospects diminished and their welfare system puled out from under them, will be the hard right parties, who will continue to distract by directing peoples' anger at immigrants and refugees.
