The present European crisis is the consequence of a momentous world transformation to which the old European federalist doctrine has been unable to find adequate responses. We know that only by joining forces can the European countries face the globalization challenge: so as to manage to preserve not only their unique social model, but also the institutional and cultural achievements that are the most admirable heritage of their history and their distinctive contribution to world civilization. How is this task to be carried out? Not by the generous utopian proposal of the United States of Europe, for this requires a centralization of sovereignty at present unacceptable to the national States. Rather, by a new “material constitution” based on the only outstanding example successful in combining social justice and economic efficiency: the German model. Unified Germany has already been leading the path to these objectives by its principles of social market economy and by leaving its imprint on the European Central Bank
