Il Piemonte nel processo di integrazione europea. Vol. 9
Edited by: Valerio Castronovo
PUblisher: Milano, Giuffrè
Year: 2008
The creation in Europe of a supra-national political community is not only a challenge to past history, to the heritage of a past marked by two worldwide conflicts and by two totalitarian ideologies, both of them having their origin and epicentre in the Old Continent, iit is also a challenge to the future, to the many problems that we must face after having entered the 21st century, in an increasingly complex scenario with changing trajectories that do not lend themselves to univocal and reassuring forecasts. The realisation of an authentic European polity, under the banner of its own Constitution, able to guarantee its citizens the conditions of sustainable development and an adequate degree of social cohesion, and play a meaningful political role at international level, is still an open game, and has been ever since the project to “rebuild Europe” out of the ashes of the Second World War began, over fifty years ago. It became even more challenging when, after the demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the self-extinction of the Soviet Union, many of the former-Communist countries of Eastern Europe joined the European Union; in fact, it is now a matter of furthering the integration process of the “newcomers” into the Community's system of principles and values, and of building up, together with them, the requisites and credentials that allow the EU to contribute to the realisation of a more equitable and multipolar world order. Not only does this perspective require a shared and farsighted action by the various States and national governments which are members of the Union, the construction of a collective European identity involves many other entities too: public administrations and local bodies, political parties and opinionist movements, trade organisations and cultural milieus, and, last but not least, individual citizens, with their various experiences and expectations. Only thus, by involving this universe of players above and beyond the trans-national relations among member States, can the European Union become a veritable political entity, a single set of peoples made brothers by their common feelings and by their sharing of common aims.
