Monti warns Britain against a ‘backward step’ on Europe

THE BRITISH Government should put aside a short-term view on Europe and avoid taking a “backward step” on integration, one of the European Union’s leading economists and a former Prime Minister of Italy told an audience at an Oxford University inaugural lecture last week.
Delivering the first William E. Simon Foundation Lecture at St Benet’s Hall, Mario Monti, who headed the Italian Government in the wake of its debt crisis between 2011 and 2013, said he accepted that integration between European countries was increasingly in conflict with national democracies.

Speaking against the backdrop of David Cameron’s promise of a referendum on British membership of the EU should he still be Prime Minister after this year’s general election, Professor Monti argued that national governments needed to think in the long term and that the enlargement of the European Union had been its “biggest success”. He said that he would be “very scared” if Eastern European countries now in the union were part of a “grey zone” with today’s Russia.

“Political arguments that can be presented in 10 seconds tend to win over those that take a minute to explain … but history tells us short cuts can be devastating for countries, communities and the world,” said Professor Monti, who is now president of Bocconi University in Milan.
Despite the warning signs, the professor described himself as “pessimistic” when it came to politicians thinking long-term.

His lecture at St Benet’s, which is run by the Benedictines, on 21 January, was introduced by Lord Patten of Barnes, chancellor of Oxford University and a former European Union commissioner.