Grillo in Brussels: A referendum to leave the euro

from news.xinhuanet.com

by Marco Quaglia

Brussels - On 12 November, the morning at the European Parliament was more animated than usual. Beppe Grillo, the outspoken leader of the Five Stars Movement, hold a press conference to present the much anticipated proposal for an Italian referendum to abandon the euro. However, as it is often the case, especially for the Italian mainstream media, the main event of the whole conference according to televisions and newspaper seemed to be its ending.

An Italian journalist interrupted abruptly the intervention of an English member of the Parliament, that was expressing esteem to Grillo’s ideas. It is to note that this was the first intervention of what everyone in the room was assuming as the beginning of a Q&A session. From that moment on it was clear that the conference was done.

Aside from that episode, however, Grillo’s speech had two targets: Germany and EU’s profligacy. The attack on Germany was very strong even by Grillo’s standard. The costs of its reunification - that according to him was not democratic; the austerity imposed by Angela Merkel; the corruption and more in general the economic model that her country represents. These were all points touched in the first part of the conference. In fact, Grillo pointed out a study commissioned by Visa Europe and carried out at the University of Linz on the size of ‘shadow economies’ in relation to GDP.

Germany has the biggest ‘shadow economy’ in absolute terms (as emerged from the table here), although way lower than the Italian one in relative terms: 13% versus 21%. Numbers aside, Grillo used these data to question German’s moral authority on this issue.

In the second part, the target moved to the European institutions. References to the overall cost of running the gigantic buildings in Brussels, the old and those under construction contributed to what was in my opinion the strongest part of his speech. Following this line of reasoning, it was worthy of attention the definition he gave to the Strasbourg headquarter: ‘a little bribe to France’.

Finally, the third part, was on the referendum. In 6 months Grillo has promised the collection of hundreds of thousands of signatures to promote a referendum to leave the euro. If we try to forget for a moment the uncertain legal feasibility, it is to note that no one in Europe was ever questioned about the euro. If it were to ever happen, it would be a very curious event in our history. However you think.