Ideas

The Monument to Italians Fallen in Africa at Syracuse (Sicily) was an initiative of Mussolini to celebrate fascist colonial ventures. It is emblematic of Italy’s and Europe’s unresolved relationship with its colonial past, an issue thrown back into the spotlight after the wave of Black Lives Matter protests in the United States. According to Somali-Italian writer Igiaba Scego, it is a wound that needs to be healed, starting with its symbols.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused a global health and economic crisis that requires global solutions. However, the national-international structure is unable to offer an adequate response to it. Thought leaders around the world have signed this document demanding to political leaders and international institutions to strengthen the UN system, the World Health Organisation and the international existing weak structure as well, applying the principles of federalism and democracy worldwide.

When long-missed Lithuanian émigrés returned home during the Corona crisis they were no longer welcome. Like everything foreign they were treated as a threat. Marius Ivaškevičius diagnoses a split corona personality, torn between mourning the openness lost and enjoying the new sedentary isolation.

While the influence of lobbies is constantly increasing in Europe, including during the current crisis, lobbying regulation is yet clearly insufficient. Building a new European Transparency Network could be a great project to create a new common policy, which could reinforce citizens’ trust in the institutions.

In this follow-up of the first German-Italian call for coordination and solidarity at the European level on dealing with the coronavirus crisis, several pro-European personalities call for a unified tax policy, and for curbing money laundering at the continent’s scale.

After the pandemic, EU citizens must seize the moment to build a democracy of equals who share the same protections.