by Giuseppe Bronzini 
Economist Jean Paul Fitoussi wrote recently that “A united Europe would be a marvellous and rich country, it would be a great table of high standing, and would hold a position of honour. Yet it is in fact reduced to begging to the IMF for financial intervention. A great lesson in Europeanism.” There is in reality wide consent amongst researchers who have tried to investigate the connection between economic and institutional aspects which characterise the current "slow death" of Europe, - from Joseph Stiglitz to Dani Rodrik, from Paul Krugman to Giuliano Amato - that the roots of the by now fiscal and economic monetary crisis which assails the old continent since the "Greek crisis", may go beyond economics and reside instead in the insufficiently rigorous process of integration, with its predisposition towards political economics, “communal” fiscal politics, and a federal currency. The example of the failure of the City of Los Angeles and the differences over management of the Greek debt default illuminate the problem.

In short what emerges is a matter of cohesion and solidarity between states and European citizens in the full assumption of a shared destiny, that must be faced, above all, in the sphere where these concepts were born and are developed; the social sphere.