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One of the panel discussions set up by Internazionale, Presseurop.eu’s Italian partner, at its annual festival in Ferrara in early October, was on “Europe in progress 1989–2009: From enthusiasm to scepticism”. Not quite a crowd-puller, one would think, given the hour (Sunday morning) and the interest of simultaneous events. And yet the place was packed, and several dozen people waited patiently in the courtyard of the medieval Castello Estense for a chance to attend the debate between a Czech journalist, his Romanian and German colleagues, and Roberto Santaniello, a European Commission representative in Italy.
The crowd was mostly young people, Italians and foreigners, who didn’t hesitate to ask nuts-and-bolts questions about the workings of the Union and her institutions, including the Central Bank. The wording of their questions betrayed no little impatience with the construction of Europe: in their opinion, it’s not moving fast enough, and the “federalist hypothesis” – clearly a minority position in present-day Europe – didn’t even seem to scare them. On the contrary, they called for more Union and less State, and were eager to know whether adoption of the Lisbon Treaty would put things back in motion, though they are troubled by the dearth of transparency and direct democracy in the European decision-making process.
We’ve known for a long time now that young people are the most Europhile slice of the population. So there is hope for the future. Our leaders, so prudent – and so prompt to blame Brussels for their failures – would be well-advised to heed the call. GP.A.
