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The Euro, therefore the coin of the European union, or of an increasing number of States of the European union, is managed from the European Central Bank and it is the peak of the iceberg, of an iceberg that calls Economic and Monetary Union. You see in this term that there is the concept of Union, it's obvious enough; there is the adjective "monetary" and the Euro embodies it; but there is also the adjective "economic", which means the the ambition, the aspiration, to a large extent the reality, already, to contemporarily have an Union of the economies, of the economies as productive systems, as activity of enterprises, as the markets of the good, services, capitals and a monetary Union. It is a very solid thing, very great, very important, but it asks for a huge attention to avoid to recreate at European level those economic and monetary illness that so many times was at national level. We have seen that the European Central Bank was born solid, protected from independence's guarantees in comparison to pressures of the political power. But this is not enough: we thought that also the public budgets, the budgets of single States members, owed, if their countries wanted to enter the Euro, to submit themselves to rules of discipline. In the economic and monetary Union, whose base is the 1991-92 Maastricht Treaty, the countries have to respect some rules of budget. Particularly they are hocked to do that their public deficits, that is the excess of the public expense, in comparison to the public entrances, i.e. the taxes, this deficit, doesn't annually overcome the 3% of the PIL, the new wealth that is produced with the productive activity in the country. This 3% have become therefore a figure to the center of a lot of attention, of a lot of tensions, to the times of a lot of polemics. Is it so much or is it little? To give you an idea, Italy, before belonging to the economic and monetary union, had often traveled, year after year, on public deficits that were of 10, of 12, of the 15% of the PIL. Someone could say, but that beautiful epoch, could be lavished. Attention, such a great public deficit means, in reality, a cruel thing, because today the expenses are financed not with done taxes to pay today, but creating debt, debt that puts on on the shoulders of the future generations, of our children and nephews, that will have then a life with tied up hands, because their States will have to refund the debt accumulated by their parents and grandparent. Here we see, I tell among parenthesis, as the union economic monetary of Europe, that seems a market thing, of bankers, of technocrats, it also has a depth ethical and civil meaning, since has imposed, and States have accepted to make themselves impose, a new ethics of respect of the future generations. I have to devote a few minutes to this aspect that usually is not discussed, but when you read, you feel the debates, Italy will succeed, Germany will succeed in being inside 3%, let's remember that behind these things there is a respect also in civil cohabitation. It is one of the cases in which Europe has not only integrated the various countries, but also has transformed them, I believe, for the best.
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