Minimising Vulnerability and Fostering Resilience: An Investment for the Future of Europe
A think piece for the ESPAS 2016 conference by Enrico Giovannini, Professor of Statistics, University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’
The ESPAS Report Global Trends to 2030 noted that ‘The world is becoming steadily more complex, more challenging and also more insecure’. Since the publication of the Report in 2015, the sense of uncertainty has become even stronger in Europe and elsewhere. The referendum on Brexit, the 2016 US elections, as well as the political conditions in several European countries have demonstrated the risks that even well-established institutional systems can face due to a growing sense of uncertainty and dissatisfaction among citizens with current policies.
In the 2016 ‘State of Union’ address, President Juncker rightly recognised the risks of dissolution that Europe is facing underlining that the ‘the next 12 months are decisive if we want to reunite our Union’. A stronger Europe must be built over the key principles contained in Art. 3 of the Treaty, particularly with regards to ‘social justice and protection, equality between women and men, solidarity between generations, and protection of the rights of the child’.
To do that in the age of uncertainty is a huge challenge, but it is not impossible, as the experience of some European countries show. This is why two key concepts should drive European policies: ‘an investment in people is an investment in future’ and ‘none left behind’.
The first principle requires a change in the current mindset and in accounting rules: today, if a company buys a computer, this is an investment, often subsidised by tax benefits; if it offers training to its employees, this is a cost. The same applies to public administrations. In a knowledge-driven economy this is a nonsense. Human (and social) capital, the most important driver of economic growth and societal well-being, has been largely reduced over the last decade and we are not doing enough to rebuild it.
The second principle is at the centre of the United Nations ‘Agenda 2030’ for sustainable development, to which all European countries have subscribed. It requires a serious fight against all inequalities, as already stated in Art. 3 of the Treaty, especially inequalities of opportunities. This is where Europe lacks a common vision, as if this would be a ‘social’ problem to be dealt by individual countries. On the contrary, existing inequalities put at risk our economic future, as well our common political perspectives.
