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“What unites us is stronger than what divides us” is what Konrad Adenauer, Robert Schuman, Alcide De Gasperi, and Jean Monnet held dear during the long process of European post-war unification. This apparently simple and yet shocking statement represents the defeat of totalitarian ideologies and affirms the unique and unrepeatable value of every human being, freedom of expression, religion, education, entrepreneurship, and cooperation among people. These are only a few of the elements that these politicians wanted to affirm, together with the desire for a lasting peace.
Let’s ask ourselves what is left, today, of the founding father’s vision of Europe, in a time of deep economic, political, and cultural crisis. That original intuition generated a positive method, a mentality and culture based on politics that allowed sixty-five years of peace and development, the longest period without conflicts in European history (except for the war in the Balkans which resulted from the collapse of the Eastern regimes).

1) The first part of the exhibit “Symphony from the ‘new world’. A United Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals,” organized for the Rimini Meeting by Foundation for Subsidiarity in collaboration with a group of university professors and students, starts from these considerations: an overview of Europe founding fathers’ thought that led to the idea of a European Union as a place of freedom, development, and peace. The true drama of the European political project, born to overturn the tragic climate of the late 1940s, consists in today’s inability to express its founding principles.

2) Yet, signs of hope are not lacking and these are highlighted in the second part of the exhibit through videos that talk about experiences of welcoming immigrants, great projects of scientific cooperation, food banks, developmental aid for weak regions, or the opportunities offered by the free movement of students, professors, workers, and goods.

Other novelties were generated by the peaceful climate that the birth of Europe allowed: a deep and historical dialogue between Catholics and Russian Orthodox in the rift of Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, and an unforeseen friendship among members of the Anglican hierarchy and world and Catholics.

3) The third part of the exhibit highlights a few economic, social, and institutional proposals that could favor support and multiplication of these events. The problem is to reconsider the value of the connection between the individual man, with all his ideals, the social structures to which he belongs, and the institutions marked by horizontal and vertical subsidiarity. From the exhibit a sign of hope and an inevitably European direction for the future of our country emerge.

Curated by the Foundation for Subsidiarity
With the collaboration of TG1 and the Adenauer Foundation
With the Sponsorship of the De Gasperi Foundation
Media partner AVVENIRE

The event is included in Ravenna Test Runs for 2019 Summer Edition Programme