The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

57 The EU has faced many crises since its begin- nings in the European Communities and it has always overcome them by reinforcing conver- gence and laying the foundations of the next stage. Since the Treaty of Maastricht (1992), taking in the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and the Treaty of Nice (2001) until the Treaty of Lisbon (2007) – which was not very different from the failed Constitutional Treaty –, progress has always been made on political integration and community competences, perhaps not as quickly as the most pro-European would have liked, but in a sustained manner. Now, since the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon, nearly 12 years have gone by (double that of previous occa- sions) without a fresh attempt at reform. And not because it is not necessary. The economic crisis that began in 2008 is probably the main cause of the reformist paralysis, but also its worst consequence, since its management has demonstrated all the defects and faults of an incomplete and scarcely effective political con- struction – as we have at present – and how those deficiencies can affect citizens. The crisis widened the gap both between member states of the Union and inside each state itself and has created a climate of mistrust between citizens from one part of Europe and the other, as well as a general mistrust of com- munity institutions that have not known how to or been able to manage the resources and poli- cies required to mitigate its effects. This, along with the migration crisis of 2015 perhaps, is one of the most important causes of the growth of populist parties, far-right parties in particular – which are ultranationalist and hostile to European integration. Today, they pose the main threat to coexistence and to our common future. There is a certain sensation among part of the European population that the EU institu- tions are in the hands of political and economic elites that they do not understand and are out of their control. Europhobic tendencies are also reinforced by the hostility towards the Union from such powerful entities as the Trump ad- ministration in the United States and the Putin regime in Russia, which have no interest in the process of European integration being a success and the EU becoming a global player with a per- sonality of its own. For the first time, an EU member state has decided to leave. Brexit, should it finally hap- pen, is another crisis of the Union. Yet it is also an opportunity for reform, because the United The difficult road towards a necessary European Federal Union José Enrique de Ayala