European leaders will gather in Brussels this week and face questions about how responsive the continent’s political systems can be to the voters’ concerns. No one is likely to be pleased with the response. Instead of accelerating plans to meet the challenge of EU-wide persistent inequalities and sluggish growth, Europe’s leaders will claim a non-existent breakthrough over the size of the bloc’s budget. It remains about 1% of the EU’s economic output. There will be a claim there is progress over eurozone reforms. Any move is likely to be sideways rather than forward, because there’s no EU agreement over fiscal transfers and collective debt. The nettle of change remains ungrasped.

That is why the big proposals spearheaded by the French economist Thomas Piketty ought to be welcomed. The Italian government’s budget row, the turmoil over Brexit and the rise of nationalist movements require a meaningful response. As we report today, along with six other leading European papers, Mr Piketty’s plan would see a tax-and-spend policy to quadruple, potentially, the EU budget by levying duties on wealthy individuals, big corporations and polluters. If implemented by the EU27 – Britain having left – the result would be that the EU’s budget would be more bazooka-like than peashooter-ish: able to raise growth rates so that 500,000 jobs per year could be created with investments in hi-tech and green goods. As the gilets jaunes protests highlight, inequality within EU countries is a major challenge that needs to be met. This scheme would give participating governments the room to cut taxes for low-income households. Crucially, the gap between revenue raised and expenditure would not exceed 0.1% of a signatory state’s GDP – a political device to dispel the idea this is a “transfer union” in disguise. Tens of billions of euros would also be set aside to manage migration, a theme mined by rightwingers to foster division.

The proposals rest upon the idea that a democratic deficit exists in the EU and it needs to be bridged. Mr Piketty calls for a “treaty for democratisation” which would see an assembly with the power to adopt common taxes to finance a common budget. This opens a way to circumvent the current EU veto of countries that block ideas of a common taxation system. The divisions recently have seen a much-needed tax on internet giants blocked. If implemented by the big countries in the eurozone – Germany, France, Italy and Spain – the Piketty scheme would represent about 70% of the currency union’s GDP and population. More would be better: a united Europe would more effectively guard against wage dumping than nations fending for themselves.

It is a tragedy that across the continent the EU has become a scapegoat for social tensions it was not responsible for. Nowhere is this more evident than in Britain. There is an increasing awareness about the lack of fiscal and social justice in Europe. Despite the existential threat, so far the EU’s response – encapsulated by this June’s Meseberg declaration – has been thin on policies and vague on promises. This is a serious error, given the divergence of living standards across the continent. What is needed are practical measures to give life to good intentions. We applaud Mr Piketty for starting the discussion.