Transcription of a speech by Lorenzo Somigli during the XXI edition of the Seminar “Penser l’Europe” in Bucharest, organized by Academia Româna and Fundatia Nationala pentru Stiinta si Arta.

The debate on Europe takes place at a critical moment. Romania is an ideal place for a meeting because of its diversity and syncretism, given its important European history of struggle for independence and freedom. It is decisive to emphasize that Europe has an integrated common market, a common energy market, an interconnected infrastructure system, but also a unique and fragile ecosystem and an extraordinary Civilization.

The so-called third generation of European citizens is now facing a political challenge. It is important to continue to think of a different Union and not just of technical, technocratic, and intergovernmental cooperation. New historical developments require a third European phase. After the fratricidal wars, there was the founding phase of structural peace on the continent. Efficiency and responsibility were achieved with the enlargement of members and competences. In any case, the fundamental principles that characterise the European identity are the first issue to be clarified.

Being European means demonstrating radical humanism. Forms of sharing unite the different European peoples. So why has belonging to the same Union exacerbated contradictions and centrifugal forces? The primacy of the market has eclipsed common roots. It is now imperative to relaunch the constitutional process as a decisive step towards a complete and mutualised European citizenship.

The reference to the Judeo-Christian cultural heritage has been the most stubborn obstacle to the European Constitution. It is an obstacle that I intend to overcome. Everyone has or does not have their own faith. A reason that is not an icy reason, the Logos inspires everyone. The European history is that of men who wanted to get closer to Heaven by working, by creating beauty, by sharing the same “social time” in beautiful places, men who are part of Nature and who want to protect other creatures who are “signs of the invisible perfections of God”, as Saint Bonaventure revealed.

Second point. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben said that in a passage of a Latin comedy, Heautontimorumenos (The Self-Tormentor), there is a motto that has the value of ethics and law. Terentius began to say, “Homo sum” and added a comma that denotes consciousness; he then added “humani nihil a me alienum puto.” This is the opposite of the increasingly widespread nihilism. It consists of considering as individuals who endure difficulties. It is crucial to think of the problem of the other, especially in an era of mutual crisis. This could be the best definition of “European Mechanism of Solidarity.”

Moreover, the struggle for freedom makes European history unique. It is said that Christian martyrs rebelled against the state, thus establishing a zone of autonomy from political power. In this way, in Europe, every man is an autonomous center of life and exists independently of the authority of the state.

There are two final observations to be made about the project of European Constitution. European culture is based on dwelling and living in a specific place – this is the difference between spatium and Raum -, as Martin Heidegger pointed out during a conference. Dwelling is confirmed as the initial and founding pillar of personal identity, as opposed to the model of the “landless” man. Consequently, Europe is also the homeland of a thousand capitals and the multiple identities are not conflicting, they are part of the same European mosaic.

So, why is European civilization so important? Capitalism has entered a new phase, proposing social models that do not fit European history.

A short, incisive, digression. A century ago, Alexander Helphand, born in Berezina, also known as Parvus, the friend of Trockij and the financier of Lenin, a brilliant manager and thinker who believed in social democracy, died in Berlin, as recalled in an in-depth analysis for IFIMES. He was the forerunner of the idea of the common market and the Union, and he predicted that the world would be further organized into larger superstates and that Europe would have to unify.

At this point the Union risks being overwhelmed by a financial Anglosphere emerging from the “Special Relationship” between England and the United States and by the Chinese path to capitalism, the so-called political capitalism.

Despite its contradictions, the Anglo-Saxon Western system has allowed the expansion of bourgeois liberal democracies and, more particularly, the expansion of the welfare state. In any case, it is difficult to conciliate the centrality of Man and Politics so typical of European civilization with the phantasmagoria of market.

Moreover, what happened in China goes beyond imagination: millions of people were lifted out of poverty and their living conditions improved in less than fifty years. In any case, here is an inescapable capitalist model: a new regime that combines “the most inhuman aspect of capitalism” with “the most atrocious aspect of state communism,” also uniting “extreme alienation of relationships” and “unprecedented social control,” as said Agamben.

These forms of capitalism therefore endanger the European biosphere. In conclusion, is needed a new transnational European movement to relaunch the path towards European Citizenship and Constitution. The process and the legitimation will have to be popular this time.

Bibliography

Agamben, Giorgio. “Capitalismo comunista”. Quodlibet, December 15, 2020. https://www.quodlibet.it/giorgio-agamben-capitalismo-comunista

Alighieri, Dante. Purgatoire. Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Boston, Ticknor and Fields, 1867.

Bonaventura da Bagnoregio. Itinerario nella mente di Dio. Riconduzione delle Arti alla Teologia. Rome, Città nuova, 2000.

Heidegger, Martin. Costruire, abitare, pensare. Bologna, Ogni Uomo è tutti gli Uomini, 2016.

Ivetic, Egidio. Sud/Nord. La frontiera globale nel Mediterraneo, separa mondi vicini che si allontanano, l’Occidente dal non Occidente. È la sintesi del nostro tempo. Bologna, Il Mulino, 2024.

Malaparte, Curzio. Tecnica del colpo di Stato. Milan, Adelphi, 2011.

Roger-Lacan, Mathieu, and Roger-Lacan, Baptiste. “L’Union européene n’est pas un empire, une conversation aver Timothy Snyder.” Le Grand Continent, October 24, 2018. https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2018/10/24/nous-avons-rencontre-timothy-snyder/

Spinelli, Altiero, and Ernesto Rossi. Il manifesto di Ventotene. Milan, Mondadori, 2017.

Zveteremich, Pietro. Il grande Parvus. Milan, Garzanti, 1988.