ABSTRACT: The "luxury" of having twelve national budgets for industry, twelve national budgets for defence, twelve frontiers, twelve research programmes which compete with each other, and twelve different currencies, has been calculated as costing: 150 billion dollars according to the estimate of the European Parliament, and 210 thousand billion dollars according to the EEC Commission. But Europe will not be able to effect such savings without an extensive reform of her institutions.

("Single issue" booklet for the XXXV Congress of The Radical Party - Budapest 22-26 april 1989)

The cost of the Europe of the twelve, twelve budgets and twelve different policies, has now become untenable. In a document from the European Parliament drawn up by Sir Fred Catherwood(1) it is maintained that the cost of this "non-Europe" could be worked out as 120 billion Ecu(2) per year if the cost is calculated of the non-opening of the public market, the non-abolishment of customs controls at frontiers between Community countries,the non-humanisation of regulations and standards, the scaling effects on costs due to the reduced size of national markets, the duplication of the measures for control and supervision, the duplication of research and investment programmes, and the need to safeguard foreign exchange in transactions between the Community's States.

In one survey by the Commission on the disadvantages of non-integration, an estimated cost of 200 billion Ecu was reached, equal to about 300 billion lire. The same survey was also able to quantify the number of jobs which could be created if the great European Market came into existence: 1.8 million. If integration was then accompanied by incentives (relaunching of investments, training, etc.), the number of those employed would increase to 5 million. It is sufficient to think of the public orders which represent 15% of the GNP of the Community which because they are almost exclusively limited to national firms, cost the different governments a surcharge of at least 10%: in other words, at least 50,000 Ecu a year.

Or again, if the existing barriers preventing the free trading of goods within the Community were dropped, there could be an increase of at least 50 billion Ecu in the industrial production of the Community.

The cost of political non-integration however, is far more significant if for example, the impossibility of conceiving a policy for security based on twelve defence budgets, twelve general staff headquarters, twelve military-industrial complexes, twelve foreign policies is considered; or the failure of the individual European countries to find a solution to the problem of unemployment is examined, starting with the twelve budgets for research and for industry which are superimposed and duplicated, thereby preventing Europe from competing on the international market with the United States and Japan in the advanced sectors where it is possible to create new demands for employment. And this technological gap within Europe continues to widen in spite of the fact that Community countries are spending almost double what Japan is spending on research.

This is also the case if the impossibility is examined of conceiving policies for ecology and energy, capable of facing both the small and large disasters which endanger today's and tomorrow's environment, and the energy threat. To the same extent that no single country can guarantee security and peace, national resources, politics and institutions are insufficient, in other words they are impotent to cope with an efficient defence system of European territory from chemical, nuclear, seismic and hydro-geological disasters and threats.

But returning to the financial advantages only, the same report by Sir Fred Catherwood warns that "such savings will not be able to be effected without a major improvement in the decision-making procedures of the Community and the equilibrium of the institutions".

Thus the central question of institutional reforms presents itself again as the premise and condition for any future development of the European Community.

(1)Group of European Democrats (British Conservatives)

(2)Ecu: European currency unit worth about 1.500 lire.