For a responsible and productive Europe characterized by solidarity; a social–economic market system

Abstract

This editorial analyses a breakthrough in the design of European integration in favor of social reordering, that took place in Lisbon in 2007. It is, therefore, an analysis of the ethics pertaining to the domestic market, following the best cultural tradition of social constitutionalism of a good part of the European States: the social economic market system. While it was the State that contemplated this issue in the past century, it now corresponds to us, 21st century Europeans, to reflect upon the market. With the formal establishment of a socioeconomic system with normative capacities, the social economy of the market could lead to the integration of the most authentic and highest aspirations of the European soul: solidarity, responsibility and productivity. Europe can only leave behind its profound and persistent crisis if it manages not to lose its soul. This task is not only Europe’s to carry out, but has to be the work of citizens in all European countries. We must succeed in resocialising the European project with new vigor, with new clarity, with a new passion for Europe. The editorial refers to a recent document of the Commission of the Catholic episcopate of the EU (October, 2011, made public in January 2012): A European Community of Solidarity and Responsibility.