Marco Buti - The Man Inside: A European Journey through Two Crises

THE MAN INSIDE

To go from point A to point B in Europe is rarely a straight line. Actually, trying to take a straight line is often the best way not to get to destination. This is one of the lessons drawn by Marco Buti, one of the very few top policy makers who went through the financial and the sovereign debt crises and, lately, the pandemic crisis, which plagued the European Union over the past twelve years. This book, which brings together his real time input to the economic and policy debate, traces the intellectual journey leading to the design and implementation under duress of difficult policies and controversial reforms. His contribution is the graphic demonstration of Jean Monnets dictum that Europe will be forged in crises and will be the outcome of the responses to those crises. The book explains the analytical and empirical foundations of European policy choices that involved a delicate balance between economic, institutional and political considerations. What emerges is a new compass that helps understand the policy strategy the EU has adopted to fight the economic fallout of the pandemic.

Marco Buti is Chief of Staff of the Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, and was Director-General for Economic and Financial Affairs at the European Commission between 2008 and 2019. He has been the Commission Finance Deputy at G7 and G20. A graduate of the universities of Florence and Oxford, he has been visiting professor at various universities in Europe. He has published extensively on Economic and Monetary Union, the political economy of European integration, macroeconomic policies, welfare state reforms and global governance.

Marco Buti

THE MAN
INSIDE

A European Journey through Two Crises

Foreword by

Adam Tooze

Postscript by

Martin Sandbu

Cover: Cristina Bernasconi, Milan

Typesetting: Laura Panigara, Cesano Boscone (MI)

Copyright 2021 Bocconi University Press

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First edition: October 2021

An insider of the European Commission since the late 1980s, Marco Buti is a unique guide through the two crises of the 21st century. The Union has been much more the solution than the problem as he persuasively demonstrates in this book and the Commission has played an essential role. There have been limits and mistakes, but the building blocks of integration built in these years have avoided the disruption of the Eurozone and contained the pandemic. We owe it to Buti and the other builders if the citizens trust has been regained a necessary condition for further steps in integration.

Giuliano Amato, former Prime Minister of Italy

Marco Buti and I have not always agreed on issues of economic policy. But I cannot think of somebody more qualified to tell us about the travails of Europe since the Great Financial Crisis. He was there all along. He had a deep understanding of the complex macro and micro economic issues at stake. And he was intellectually honest. An exceptional combination, reflected in this book giving his reflections in real time (something few policy makers would dare to do, preferring to rewrite history and their role in a more convenient way).

Olivier Blanchard, Senior Fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics

This collection of VoXEU contributions shows how history is made. Marco Buti, a man inside the vortex of the making of European monetary history, produced and published a steady stream of reflections, analysis and reform proposals on VoxEU. The collection reminds us of how far the European Monetary Union has come in the wake of two deep crises. The man inside can certainly take a share of the credit and his writings over the last decade are worth rereading, not only for historical purposes.

Beatrice Weder Di Mauro, President of the Centre for Economic Policy Research

Ai miei genitori, Cesarina e Parisio, che mi hanno lasciato scegliere.

To Aurelie, Gregory and Lorenzo who became young adults during the years covered by this book. Theyre shaping the new Europe.

With endless love.

Part A.
EMU: Past, Present and Future

Part B.
Fiscal Policy and Fiscal Rules

Part C.
The Political Economy of European Integration

Part D.
Real Economy and Convergence During the Great Recession

Part E.
Eastern Enlargement, Global Governance and the Euro

Part F.
Between Two Crises

This book is an occasion for me to thank all the colleagues with whom I have worked over the years, several of whom are the co-authors of individual chapters in this book. Benefiting from the intellectual prowess and enthusiasm of my colleagues and, later, having the opportunity to guide their work has been an incredible honour as well as a constantly renewed pleasure. I can only hope that my action as senior official first and then Director General and Head of Cabinet at the Commission does justice to the tremendous respect and admiration that I have for their work.

Specifically, for their help on the preparation of this book, I would like to thank Oscar Polli, for excellent research assistance, and Antonella Pirami, for editorial support.

I am grateful to Adam Tooze and Martin Sandbu who not only accepted to write, respectively, the foreword and the postscript, but provided also very helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of the introduction and on the overall presentation of the material.

Most of all, I thank Alyce for her patience, advice and love during long evenings, weekends and holidays while drafting and revising this book. Only love back, a very unequal exchange.

***

The articles collected in this volume are reproduced as published at the time with only limited editorial changes to make them self-contained for todays readers.

The views expressed in this book are personal and should not be attributed to the European Commission or its services.

by Adam Tooze

Europe will be forged through crises and will be the sum of the solutions to these crises.

These lines by Jean Monnet are often cited as consolation. They remind us that time and again Europe is counted out, only to rise again, reconfigured and more tightly integrated. Europe came through the empty chair crisis of the early 1960s, the shock of German unification and the end of the Cold War, the exchange rate crisis of the 1980s and 1990s and the setback to the constitutional proposal of 2005. As Monnet predicted, Europe was defined by the solutions to each of those crises.