On September 3rd and 4th, 2020, ALDA Secretary General Antonella Valmorbida was honoured to participate to the Annual Federalist Training Seminar of the Spinelli Institute for Federalist Studies in Ventotene (Italy), together with the European Federalist Movement Italy and Europe. While she was an observer on the first day, she took the floor at the seminar on “European Solidarity vs Nationalism: towards political union” on the second day.
“Federalism in Europe and in the world. From the Monetary Union to the United States of Europe” was the title of this 39th edition of the event on the island where the Manifesto that inspired European Unity was written. Mrs Valmorbida’s intervention focused on solidarity being at the very heart of the European project and needing to be given priority not just in Covid-19 times or more generally in times of emergency, but rather as a matter of habit and constance.
“It is a question of individual wellbeing within a wider context“, she reminded; “institutional and political work must go hand in hand with a sense of citizenship, of culture and of common destiny and identity“. She proceeded to detail how the European project should be interpreted at the local level, too, and brought closer to citizens’ common sense, which can be distant from the great political dynamics but still very important. Such common sense of destiny, in fact, should be based on a series of micro-actions that, together, become macro: “ALDA works on a citizen dimension, of diffusion and information. Promoting citizenship, involvement, an idea of collective home through concrete practices: this is what we do together with local entities, municipalities and communities that share the same values“.
Of course, finding unanimity on complex topics is never easy when you involve masses of people, but after all “a citizen who’s active in their community is a citizen who’s active in the growth of Europe“. So on we go, with the strong belief that it is in the intimacy of local communities that each citizen’s vote is elaborated.
Read more on the event on the Spinelli Institute’s website.