In history textbooks, a short sentence pretty much sums up the complexity of Italian unity. It is attributed to Massimo D’Azeglio, a Piedmontese patriot. At the time of the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 (then incomplete since it was not until 1870 that Rome and the Papal States completed the map), he had this word: We made Italy, now we have to do the Italians
.
A “geographic expression”
Late, Italian unity was indeed full of contradictions. Led by Piedmont, it responded to a deep aspiration centuries-old, Dante dreamed of it, and participated in national aspirations spread in Europe by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic period. Above all, the Peninsula was divided. Economically, socially and even linguistically. So divided that Metternich, the prince who negotiated for Austria at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, had this other famous word: Italy is only one geographic expression
. Contemptuous, the word motivated Italian patriots, and history has proven him wrong.
One hundred and fifty years later, Europe is in a situation somewhat similar to that of Italy in 1861. In a way, the European Union is made
in the sense that much has been accomplished since 1950 and the Schuman Declaration. Shared institutions, common interests have become reality, but the divisions are obvious. The Piedmontese monarchy was long perceived as a foreign body, the Brussels bureaucracy too. The north south ditch remains (and will get worse with the crisis). Europeans remain to be done.
However, neither financial loans, nor budgetary rules, nor administrative regulations are sufficient to take this step. Whether municipal, regional, national or European, bureaucracy is always boring. Sharing the feeling of a common destiny is something else. Gestures, symbols, shared ambitions. In short, by the very essence of politics.
It is this level that is dramatically missing. By 2015, Greece had become the perfect culprit fora crisis which, however, far exceeded it. We scoured our accounts, administered painful potions, unlocked a mountain of loans (after reducing the risks for our banks), Germany even wanted to drive it out of the euro, but it never came to mind no executive to open a research laboratory in Greece for young Greek graduates. To make a gesture that makes sense, for everyone.
The primacy of politics
Italy is today facing considerable challenges. Financial, migratory, health crises, the account has been heavy for ten years, and the most europhile country in the group has become the most skeptical. Again, gestures are necessary. Real gestures, donations, not just loans. Will we be able to do them? Solidarity speaks for itself, we help each other with neighbors. We are all experiencing it right now. But if solidarity is lacking in the midst of an epidemic, what will we have to say to each other?
In 1870, France and Prussia entered an infernal cycle, which would produce three wars in seventy-five years. We even came to speak of the hereditary enemy, so deeply rooted in the inevitability of the conflict with the German neighbor. Since 1945, seventy-five years of peace have followed. Exactly the same duration. Have we therefore become hereditary partners? This does not obvious. Friendships are maintained, especially in the ordeal. It is at this meeting that the leaders are called upon to face the economic crisis that awaits us and which will widen the existing gaps. The time has come to do Europeans
.
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