What can be expected?

Abstract

Over the past sixty years, Europe has been driven by a dream, now seriously under threat, of an economic, political and cultural community. With the outbreak of the financial and economic crisis, which mainly affects the Southern countries, the idea of a “European venture” is seriously facing the risk of collapse. The categories which made the West what it is (and have, thus, fuelled the European dream) were founded on one’s word- a realm of promise. It was promise which discerned the future, providing reassurances about it. But now it is the present that engages us, not the future. We find ourselves plunged into the present without any assurance of a solid foundation, of a familiar territory and of a stable identity, devoured by the insatiable sphinx of the global market, towards which we are mobilised by information technology. The idea of Europe should combine with a multiculturalist idea of globalisation, which encompasses peoples from extensive geo-cultural areas, promotes and respects differences and dignifies the national languages. A prevalent underlying principle should be that progress and culture stem from the intermingling of ethnicities, as well as from the intermingling of memories, traditions and landscapes. Furthermore, what should also prevail is the principle that it is possible to flourish within a transnational or supranational entity, a federation that has room for many States. Reinventing this horizon, one of a shared community, is the promise that Europe should seize from all the ideas for the future.