The Greatest Exercise in Democracy

Nicola Losito:

During my recent holiday in Spain, I found myself reflecting on the joy and the freedom I enjoyed moving from one State to another: from not having to change currency, from having my documents recognised, from not having to switch my phone plan, from not having to pay artificial surcharges. Moving between Italy and Denmark is the equivalent of a trip between Bari and Bolzano – there will be differences, and long may they live! – but there will also be things in common, the essential ones, that unite us and make us ‘one people’. .
Shutting ourselves away in our own ziggurats will bring us no wellbeing, nor will it take us far as Humanity. Our greatest progress has come whenever we moved beyond the needs of the single individual.

This summer, in Brussels, I walked through the courtyards of the European Parliament, and gazed, fascinated, at the buildings of the Council and the Presidency. I couldn’t get inside – it was a Sunday visit and the institutions were asleep – but it was moving all the same. Moving because the European Union is an enormous exercise in democracy. And democracy, as the quote goes – attributed to Winston Churchill, though who really knows – is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have ever been tried.

Bringing together the needs, the desires and the hopes of 27 different countries which, in turn, each contain needs, desires and hopes splintered into rivulets of different factions, is an ambition of the highest order. You become slow, ponderous, partial and, above all, forcedly diplomatic. The compromises are always many, and bureaucracy must necessarily govern languages, cultures, habits, customs and rules that would otherwise let the few prevail over the many.

So yes, it was moving. I therefore fully share quote¹ from my friend Nicola. I’m sorry for the citizens of Iceland. Despite the flaws, I feel proudly European. There’s still so much to do, but so much has already been done.

Let’s look ahead, but with an awareness of what lay behind us only a few generations ago. We are fortunate.