Opinion

European citizenship and civil society

photo_camera bandera-union europea

There is a lot of time to recover and a lot of "garden to water" in order to be in a position to face a deep process of metabolising European Citizenship as a sign of identity and common feeling on the part of Europeans.

The process of European Union, which has been based on economic and monetary union through the single market and monetary union as its core, should have been accompanied by a great effort of cultural integration and by the gradual and sensitive definition and implementation of a European way of life.

The European Cultural Heritage that we are now trying to promote had to be the cement that united the Europe of merchants as well as money and material interest.

Without shared feelings it is very difficult to achieve noble and lofty goals that are structural and form part of the epidermis and heart of European citizens.

It is clear that the difficulty of the endeavour has marginalised the initiative for decades because its success is doubtful and its definition and implementation among Europeans is very complex.

We start from different cultures, although with a powerful common denominator based on Roman civilisation and Renaissance humanism, two excellent elements, identifiable with one of the countries of the Union, Italy, whose ancestors dominated and cultured Europe and the world, despite other Europeans, especially central and southern Europeans.

To make matters worse, it turns out that the language that should unite us is precisely that which does not belong to any country of the Union and which we have adopted, for the sake of practicality, from a partner of the Union that has left us: the United Kingdom.

Hence we face a dramatic dichotomous duality between European Culture and its means of expression that belongs little or not at all to it.  This is really difficult when it comes to expressing and assimilating the deepest cultural and social feelings.

The reference to a common memory is also difficult because in Europe we have lived separated and at war with each other for centuries and we have been a bad example of coexistence and intolerance. But we have also been united by great achievements in many fields of science and education. 

Only the sharing of common values and principles of life and conduct can help us to overcome so many cultural and linguistic difficulties and separating pasts. And therein lies the root of a common identity, which will be based on this way of feeling the essence of our way of life, which will also have to be complemented by common civic and civic behaviour patterns.

Herein lies the enormous challenge for our European Civil Society and what we must work on and persevere with. To begin with, our capacity to talk to each other and interact is poor, as European civil society organisations are rather national in nature with little European projection and impact.

Moreover, we have a certain tendency to get involved in more domestic national issues, just as most European citizens are provincial and travel little outside Europe. Only a cosmopolitan and globally mobile minority is able to understand enthusiastically the importance of European Citizenship.

European Civil Society organisations have to make a huge effort of permeability between us and of factual interaction. Organising initiatives in which we can collaborate together and implement common projects.

The promotion by the European Commission of several funding programmes for the development of Digital Platforms for Citizen Participation this year and next will help a lot in this process of integration of European Civil Societies.

There is also a problem of representativeness of civil society, which is generally dispersed and poorly coordinated. It is therefore desirable to create platforms for strategic collaboration between civil society organisations in each country and between these organisations and those in other European countries. Perhaps also by defining a series of lowest common denominators (preferably multiples if possible) that unite us.

It is not enough just to define the Europe we want, but also what we are prepared to do to achieve it. And here we have a superlative challenge because the integration of actions and initiatives in different territories managed by different people is always a complicated challenge.

To begin with, we need to do a great deal of work related to the implementation of humanism in our European way of life, which today is tremendously related to technologies and digitalisation, and subordinated to the reductive gregariousness of artificial intelligence and the growth of 'fake news', with the consequent development of a certain imposture that clouds our true objectives.

European citizenship is a great thing of which we should and can be proud. It is now also time to move beyond the concept of nationality to a post-national society based more on shared values than on territorial and geographical identity, and with a real effort to integrate and empathise with European civil society. The Conference for the Future of Europe is undoubtedly an excellent fulcrum for all of this. 

Aldo Olcese, President of the National Association of Civil Society Now.