Between 6 and 9 June the polls will be open across Europe to elect the new European Parliament: crucial elections to shape the future of the continent. Many different ideas of Europe challenge each other: the neoliberal one; the conservative-authoritarian one, and that of peace, social and environmental justice.
We have selected some editorial news dedicated to this theme.
Let’s also take a step back, looking for the founding mothers, who together with Altiero Spinelli, fought to build a united, peaceful, democratic continent. An example? It’s July 18, 1979 and the protagonists of this moment are Louise Weissdoyen of the first European Parliament elected with universal suffrage, designated to temporarily preside over the Assembly until the election of the person who would permanently direct it, and Simone Veil, first president of the European Parliament legitimized by popular vote and first woman to preside over it. It was under her presidency that the first commission of inquiry into the condition of women in Europe began.
Forum Inequalities Diversity
WHICH EUROPE. Understanding, discussing, choosing
edited by Elena Grain and Gloria shore
Donzelli publisher
More info here
The parties warm up their engines: they choose names, put forward candidacies, think about tactics. And the programs? The wind of nationalism and the widespread resistance to believing and fighting for a real alternative in almost all member countries risk leading to short-lived proposals, timid in addressing the challenges of the double transition, digital and environmental; ambiguous, at best, towards migrants; inadequate to counteract the new world disorder, wars and also the many inherited injustices.
Faced with this scenario, the Inequalities Diversity Forum has decided to take the field with this volume. It is not a descent into the electoral arena. It is the offer of some features of the European Union that would serve social and environmental justice, an informative and comparison contribution, a yardstick for judging, before and after the elections, programs, parties, candidates and elected representatives, a compass for monitoring civic of the actions that the Union will carry out in the next legislature.
United States of Europe. A twelve-star epic
by Gianluca Passarelli
Aegean
More info here
The European Union is a project, an ideal; for some a dream, for others a hope, for some a danger; definitely a construction and a challenge. But above all it is a unique case in history: States that decide – freely – to grant sovereignty to a political entity and share government matters that have been a national prerogative for centuries. Passarelli reconstructs the bumpy events with a historical, cultural and political approach, combining great dissemination skills and the ability to reconnect the most current issues with roots that lie in the past. Even complex interpretative categories (functionalist/federalist model, nation states and member states, intergovernmental and supranational policies) are transformed in his pages into accessible concepts with which to shed light on many of the issues at the center of political debate and international balances. Without apology or rhetoric, the book analyzes the problems, prospects and actions to be taken to achieve a United States of Europe.
From the Baltic to the Black Sea. Journey to discover the other Europe
By Romano Bede
Il Mulino editions
More info here
A story that unfolds across the time and space of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Between 2004 and 2013, eleven countries in Central and Eastern Europe, once part of the former Soviet bloc, joined the European Union. They are countries with a painful history and changing borders that have lived for centuries in the shadow of various empires. This has made it a tormented cultural crossroads which today finds itself experiencing a feeling of national awakening, if not, in some cases, nationalistic temptations. They are countries that have benefited from enlargement and economic liberalization, but are grappling with various demographic and social problems. They are countries that have joined the EU but sometimes seem more in tune with NATO. This is the setting in which Bede Romano’s journey takes place among stories, places, characters and monuments of another Europe.
The ways of democracy
by Yves Meny
The Mill
More info here
From the hill in Athens in front of the Acropolis to Brussels: the long journey of the idea that brings together men considered free and equal in a political community. Historically, democracy is believed to be a Western invention, with the individual at its center and a power not anchored in the divine or tradition. Even though the societies of the ancient Greeks and Romans were very different from ours, their thought animated the philosophical-political debate in Europe and kept alive an aspiration that took a long time to come true. The book is an itinerary among the iconic places of our freedom: from the hills of Athens and Rome to the meadow of the Magna Carta in Windsor, in Siena, in Amsterdam, where in front of Rembrandt’s Night Watch we will meditate on religious freedom and London that gives us it will recall the revolution of 1689, which a century later will rebound in Philadelphia, which in turn will inspire Paris and the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Raskolnikov’s library
Books and ideas for a democratic identity
By Simonetta Fiori
Einaudi
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Democracy is always at risk. And in times of populism, the danger of authoritarian involution grows. To stop him, a robust democratic conscience is needed. But what does it mean? And through which books is a civil identity capable of facing the storms of the present formed? Intellectuals of different orientations – progressive and otherwise – indicate their ideal library, books and proposals to orient themselves in today’s great confusion.
What do we need Europe for?
By Pier Virgilio DastoliEmma Bonino
afterword by Romano Prodiwith the collaboration of Luca You change, preface by Corrado Augeas
Marsilio
More info here
Do we really need Europe? Aren’t we wasting time and energy on an idea? Is today the land of rights imagined in Ventotene? While the Union is under attack from many sides, accused of being a stepmother distant from the real problems of citizens, Emma Bonino and Pier Virgilio Dastoli, undisputed protagonists of the pro-European project, choose to embark on a journey into the personal and collective memory that concerns us all close. They retrace struggles and progress, defeats and conquests, they recover the traces of the existences and aspirations of many women and men who fought to build and defend this ideal, and invite us to become aware of how much still remains to be done, without however committing the ‘mistake of forgetting, or worse, throwing away, the enormous work done so far.
Brussels effect
How the European Union rules the world
by Anu Bradford
Franco Angeli
More info here
For many observers, the European Union is stuck in a deep crisis.
Slow growth, political unrest after a decade of austerity, uncertainty surrounding its post-Brexit future and the rise of Asian influence make the EU appear to be a declining power on the world stage.
In this book, Anu Bradford argues the opposite. The EU remains an authoritative superpower that shapes the world in its image. By enacting regulations that transform the international business environment, raising standards around the world, inducing a remarkable Europeanization of many important aspects of global trade, the EU has managed to exert its influence in areas such as competitive policy, data, online verbal violence, consumer health and safety, environmental protection.
This book illustrates how the EU acquired this power, why multinationals use European norms as standards, and why the EU’s role as a global regulator is likely to survive its gradual economic decline, prolonging the EU’s influence. EU in future years.
For the younger ones (but not only)
Pioneer. The women who made Europe
by Pina Caporaso, Giulia Mirandola
Illustrations by Michela Nanut
Seven-nine, 2022
More info here
It tells the lives of eleven women who, with ideas and actions, contributed to building Europe.
Their biographies tell of the desire for a union characterized by peace, rights, social justice and gender equality, capable of transcending national barriers and short-term visions. The women represented in this book were revolutionaries, lawyers, officials, trade unionists and teachers. Some were protagonists of great founding moments, others of tenacious daily work.
The eleven biographies are accompanied by some pages on the contexts in which their action generated significant changes: pacifism, women’s work, the Erasmus programme, the presence of women in European constitutional processes and in community institutions. A journey that crosses the twentieth century to lead us to the wealth, but also to the vulnerability of today’s Europe. An idea still under construction, which can draw great nourishment from the words and actions of these extraordinary women.
To know more
We have the issue of VITA magazine “Europe to be remade” is dedicated to the most relevant social issues to be explored in depth in view of the European elections next June. If you are a subscriber or subscriber to VITA you can read it immediately from here. And thank you for the support you give us. If you want to read the magazine, receive the next issues and access dedicated content and features, subscribe here.
