Antonio Tajani is European Commissioner for Industry, a sector that has been hit hard by the crisis, and one which several member states are hoping will play a central role in their recovery. On the sidelines of the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy, he told us about the EU’s recipe for economic recovery, the crisis affecting the Union’s relationship with its citizens, and his vision for the future of Europe.

Mr Tajani, the crisis is ongoing in Europe and unemployment has reached record levels in several countries. Numerous experts have highlighted the issue of the competitivity of companies, which remains problematic in most EU states, with the notable exception of Germany, as well as the weakness of internal demand. How should these difficulties be addressed?

With policies that enable companies to relaunch production. First and foremost, this will entail a simplification of access to credit and payments that are owed to companies. That is why the Commission is proposing a new directive on late payments, which has already been adopted by 18 member states.

This directive, as well as a flexible interpretation of the Stability and Growth Pact, which will facilitate the reimbursement of debts owed by the public administration and should put a further €180bn in circulation in Europe, that will dynamize the positive feedback loop of production and consumption.

We will also have to give new powers to the European Central Bank (ECB), so that it can play the same role as the American Federal Reserve. Its President, Mario Draghi, is in tune with arguments on this wavelength, and wants an ECB that can govern the common currency in a manner that is in the interest of citizens.

The variation in pay scales in Europe has added to differences in the competitivity of companies in different EU states. Some have argued that it is even undermining competition within the EU. Is Europe planning to intervene to promote greater harmonisation?

Competitivity is not threatened by a variation in pay scales between different EU states: the problem is one of fiscal pressure on companies, which is excessive in some countries. And this is where we can intervene: by obliging national governments to reduce this pressure, and ensuring that companies are paid, and that they have easy access to credit. At the end of the day, this will result in better conditions for all workers.

2012 was a bad year for the European car industry, and 2013 is shaping up to be similar for a majority of players, with the notable exception of the Volkswagen group. What is the EU doing about this?

We have launched a three-point action plan: firstly, we have doubled funding for car industry research and innovation in the next EU budget. Secondly, we are implementing a “non-naive” trade policy for the sector, that is to say one that protects car industry interests but within the framework of trade agreements. Thirdly, we have simplified existing regulations, and new rules and proposals will only be drafted in response to exceptional developments, for example in the field of road safety. The goal is ensure that we do not add to the burden of technical and financial standards weighing on entrepreneurs.

Does it make sense to provide support for the car industry, at a time when more and more cities are hoping to reduce the number of cars in their streets?

What does not make sense is wanting to cut down on car production. It has to be done in an intelligent manner: the doubling of funding for research and innovation is only for "greener" cars, which run on hydrogen and electricity, or feature other less-polluting technologies.

According to forecasts, there will be 2.5bn vehicles in the world in 2050, as opposed to 1.7bn today. There is therefore room for exports and internationalisation. For example, the good results of Fiat plants in Brazil have enabled the brand to keep its operations going in Italy.

When are these proposals going to be examined by the European Council?

The council meeting on competitiveness is planned for the end of June. Then there is a meeting on industry slated for the beginning of the year, which will be more focused on manufacturing. Then there will be a third one that is more oriented towards defence, which should take place before the end of this year. For years, industry has been set aside by political leaders obsessed with finance, now Europe is making industry a central priority for the economy. Manufacturing is supposed to account 20 per cent of the EU’s economic activity by 2020. As it stands, the average for EU states is 16 per cent.

The de-industrialisation that began in Europe in the 1980s has been identified as one of the causes of the economic crisis. Are we aiming to reverse this trend?

De-industrialisation was a big mistake. We need a more modern and a more competitive industry. For that, we will need a third industrial revolution: after coal and oil, the time has come for a revolution based on green energy, energy saving, and key-enabling technologies, specifically bio- and nano-technologies, that will enable our industry to attain a global level of excellence.

Can you tell us about collaboration on this initiative with your colleagues in the Commission? For example with the commissioners for the environment and research.

The Commissioner for the Environment, Ms Hedegaard, and I are very much on the same wavelength. The reduction of CO2 emissions is a positive goal, as long as it not allowed to become counterproductive. I believe the 2020 target of a 20 per cent reduction [in emissions from their level in 1990] is a valid one, but I do not believe that this objective should be increased as some people have suggested. A higher target would result in higher costs for European companies, which would then consider terminating their operations in Europe. Not only would this result in job losses, but it would also amount to a setback in the fight against global warming: because those companies would simply transfer polluting activities to other countries with more flexible legislation on CO2 emissions.

The latest Eurobarometer survey has highlighted a worrying decline in EU citizens’ confidence in European institutions. What can be done to combat this disaffection?

The disaffection has been caused by the economic crisis, in which Europe has been perceived as a political force that is demanding sacrifices. We have to reverse this trend and also take stock of the election results in several European countries, where Euroscepticism and a mistrust of the euro have now emerged. To this end, policy must be changed so that it is more focused on growth and the development of the real economy. As Commission President José Manuel Barroso has recently pointed out, we should stop insisting on sacrifices and do more for industry, companies and the internal market. Austerity can only be useful if it is accompanied by measures to provide support for growth.

On this point, do you believe that the communication from the Commission has been satisfactory?

More could be done, especially with regard to explaining what we do. As for myself, I do a lot of traveling because I believe that is important to communicate on our work. For example, this year we have launched an initiative to organise encounters between the EU and its citizens, with meetings in public squares and town halls etc.

Will you be a candidate in next year’s European elections?

I do not think so, but I am counting on completing my mandate [which ends in October 2014].

What do you think of the proposal launched by several European politicians and intellectuals, and taken up by the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, that parliamentary groups should put their candidate for the European Commission presidency at the head of their electoral list?

I am in favour of the principle that the European Commission president should be elected by Europe’s citizens. Barroso’s reappointment in the wake of the conservative European People’s Party victory [PPE] in 2009 European elections was a step in this direction, which responded to some extent to the demand for more democracy in the management of European institutions.

Who will be the PPE candidate?

The party has yet to discuss the question of a candidate. That will be raised next year.

The European Union has entered a critical period in which it is faced with conflicting demands as well as a resurgence of Euroscepticism and isolationism in several member states. How do you view the future of the EU?

I think we should continue to forge ahead. Piecemeal measures will not serve any purpose. We should set our sights on a United States of Europe. If we do not, we will remain stuck in the middle of the ford where we run the risk of being swept away by the current. It is transition that will take time: it took the Americans a century to achieve, and they had to go through a civil war, even though they faced perhaps fewer obstacles than we do. These are difficult times for Europe, but 20 years ago, who would have thought that we would have a single currency? We have to be determined and confident, because we cannot expect to have any global impact acting alone. It is a goal that will not be achieved overnight, but I hope that in my lifetime we will see a United States of Europe.

Considered one of the most talented economists of the moment, Tomáš Sedláček believes that economics should be humanised. His international non-fiction bestseller, Economics of Good and Evil, has recently been published in France. Presseurop met him for an interview.

In Economics of Good and Evil, you argue that the boundaries of economics, which define it as an exact science based on mathematical formulae, should be extended to take into account philosophy, religion and the arts. In what way is this concept new and what does the title refer to?

We have a tendency to separate technical thinking from issues of the soul. Economics takes pride in being as difficult as possible, and I try to show that if you separate the body from the soul, both of them lose their sense. Classic questions we economists ask ourselves are: does the economy work? Is the economy efficient? But we should be asking what is the purpose of the economy.

And so what is it then?

The idea is to connect economics with other disciplines. The Bible loses its sense if you read it only spiritually. Economics loses its sense if you look at it only technically. This is what I am trying to do in my book: talk about the soul of economics and make it visible.

If we want the economy to be fair, then the economy should look different. If we only want the economy to give us wealth, then how? If we leave all this to the invisible hand of the market, the markets will lead us. I call it an unorchestrated orchestra. If you can not orchestrate it, it will orchestrate you.

So do we have to reintroduce ethics into the economy?

There has been a lot of talk about the fact that we need to put ethics and humanity into economics. I agree with that, but economics has ethics of its own: you should be efficient, you should be rational, you should not be emotional; it's alright to be selfish and it’s okay for nations to regard their interests. Every system has its own ethics.

I have just read a story about Sodom and Gomorrah. The ethical theme there, was that you must not help anybody. It tells a story about two girls who give bread to a hungry beggar. When other people find out they had acted against the ethics of Sodom and Gomorrah, one is burnt alive and the other hung from the city walls where she is covered in honey to be eaten alive by bees. Nazism had an ethics of its own, communism had an ethics of its own and economics has an ethics on its own. So if we are not happy about the ethics of our time, we should change them.

Is it like some religion that should impose a balance between materiality and spirituality in economics?

Economics on its own became a sort of religion. It tells us what to do, how to think, who we are, how to find meaning in our lives, how to relate to one another, on which principles the society glues together. In a way, it already has religious properties. Take away the mathematics from the economics, and you are left with pure morality.

In Economics of Good and Evil, you claim we have become obsessed by the idea of economic growth. Are you against progress?

I am not against growth or progress. The problem is that we have fetishised it. I am using examples from high and low culture to show that if you fetishise something, it will destroy you. It can be ethics, it can be economics, it can be religion, it can be even your darling. If you fetishise your love, it can drive you nuts. That is what I have called subject-object reversal. You create something that is supposed to listen to you and serve you, then something happens to reverse the subject-object relationship, and you end up listening to it and serving it.

In literature, I found many examples from Golem to Aladdin's Lamp and The Lord of the Ring. At the beginning, and I still believe it, the system – let's call it market democracy – was a fertile ground for growth. In time, it has reversed and it became a condicio sine qua non of market democracy. We should be grateful when growth happens, but if it doesn't, we should be able to survive. The crisis comes only because we think that we will explode as a civilisation without growth. Growth doesn't happen all the time: some years we invent many things, other years we don't invent anything. Some years we have strong GDP growth, some years we have zero or negative GDP growth.

Is there anything positive in today’s crisis?

[Carl] Jung said that nothing can change outside of crisis, least of all human nature. This is not a European crisis, but a crisis of the western world. America, Japan and Europe each try to cope with it their own way. The most important thing is to talk about it. Even people in small villages somewhere up in the mountains talk about Europe now.

We make fun of America, that they are proud of what they have built. In Europe we are not proud of what we have built. The crisis pushed Europe to integrate faster than ever. If 10 years ago, someone had talked about the fiscal compact, it would have been complete blasphemy. Helping each other like we do today is quite unprecedented. So I hope Europe will come out of this better and stronger. In the good old days, half of Europe was missing. I see crises as an opportunity for Europe to move forward.

But what about all the Eurosceptic feelings about Europe and euro?

Compared to the 1920s and 1930s, it does not represent a serious danger.

What do you think of the European austerity policies that have been implemented since the beginning of the crisis?

We can compare it to America, which is still doing the same thing, adding more fiscal energy, more deficits, and printing money. Here in Europe, we are trying to bite the bullet. We know that we have become drug dependent on deficit, and we need to go through a painful detox. If we won't do this, the economy will kill us.

We have to be competitive because of China and other emerging markets. Yes, we are doing austerity in the most inopportune time. In Davos last year, the topic was the great transformation, looking for new models. You never ask yourself who you are until you get into trouble.

How do you explain that some German politicians refuse to pay for the debts of the Greeks or Portuguese and impose austerity?

The debate is whether Greece is a market or a part of the family. If somebody from the family breaks a leg, you run and help them, but if your baker breaks a leg, you go to another one. No hard feelings, you are not interested in the baker, you are interested in buying a bread. In America they don't have a problem with this, they were doing transfers from state to state for hundreds of years, but you don't see it much, because it's a federation. In France you do it as well, stronger regions sending money to a weaker ones. We do the same thing in the Czech Republic. So we have to ask, who is our neighbour, is it only France or is it also Greece?

We know that crises give the opportunity to rethink the economic models. What would you advise to the European leaders to avoid leading their countries into more deficit?

Some generations ago, European politics had two hands to influence the economy, one to control the monetary policy, the other to influence fiscal policy. Simply put, monetary policy is the monopoly of the government to print money, whereas fiscal policy is the monopoly of government to print debt. Now, we have taken monetary policy away from the politicians, and we have tied their hands behind their backs.

So, politicians in Europe nowadays can't print money. They still have the one hand, so they can print as much debt as they want, and not much can stop them. The pressure from the European Union and the markets is not enough. The markets react too little and too late, and the European target that we have agreed on as a federation, for nations not have deficits of more than a 3 per cent of the GDP, has proven not to be powerful enough to reduce deficits.

So this is why Europe doesn't have a problem with inflation, this is why we are trying to solve everything with only one hand, by printing debt. The debate today is about whether we should free both hands or whether we should also tie the second hand. I believe the role of the government should be a minimal and that governments should also give up their control over the level of deficit produced.

If you look at the state of Europe, what myths or film you would compare it to?

The Lord of the Rings. Elves and Dwarves hate each other, while Hobbits gather around and live together throughout the difficult times. When everything was fine, nobody was interested in Europe. We started to take for granted that we have peace and commerce. The idea of the European Union was to make trade, not war. The Second World War was a result of the fetishisation of the idea of the nation state. We can view the European Union as an answer to that fetishisation. What we have done, and it was an ingenious move, was to exchange the geographical growth of a nation with its economic growth. But we don't think of GDP of Europe: we still think of GDP of France versus that of Germany versus that of Greece. There is no doubt that trading geographical growth for an economical one is positive and a good thing. Now that we have growth in the economies, we can also trade that for growth in other areas, such as culture, social interaction and other important domains.

A lot can change in two years. When we interviewed Mario Monti on the sidelines of the State of the Union conference during the Festival d’Europa in Florence in 2011, the former European commissioner and president of Bocconi University spoke spontanously, during a coffee break. Now that he has added Prime Minister of Italy to his list of former accolades, a bodyguard-surrounded Monti keeps a hectic schedule at the conference’s 2013 edition. However, after a short press conference with Italian journalists eager for his views on his successor Enrico Letto's new coalition government, Monti accepted to speak with Presseurop.

Two years ago, Monti shared his thoughts on the threats of the crisis on the unique market and the euro. The future of these two pillars of the European Union now seem guaranteed, regardless of how the EU and its member states deal with the crisis. We asked Monti if he believed the current atmosphere in Europe was more favourable to resolving the crisis today than in 2011.

I have the impression that it is. We have made many concrete moves to end the crisis. We have also directed European policy toward the future, drafting an outline that is about to be finalised of a plan for a true economic and monetary union, under the guidance of the group presided by [European Council President] Herman Van Rompuy. I also believe heads of state and government are finally taking the political and psychological impact of nationalism and populism more seriously into account. I believe economic policy must change, but not out of pressure from nationalists and populists. If we want to adopt certain policies in a climate exposed to the risks presented by nationalism and populism, care must be taken to proceed with caution.

Throughout his mandate as prime minister, particularly during spring of 2012, Monti attempted, alongside French president François Hollande and Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, to rebalance relations between member states and get Germany to soften its position on many issues. We asked for his thoughts on what the different perspectives and current tensions between France and Germany meant for the continuation of the European project.

I remain convinced that strong Franco-German ties are an essential condition for Europe to move forward. But if it is essential, it is also not enough. It is also very important for France and Germany not to give the impression they are being exclusive and discriminatory. I believe this was partly the case during the years of cooperation between Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, and much less so now between Mrs. Merkel and François Hollande.