Back in the old continent I’ve been drugged into the European affairs again, meaning a day-long multi-party discussion ending with collective recognition that every participant has learned a lot and any decision will be taken at the next meeting. “let’s have a glass of champagne to celebrate the process!”.
Last week i was in Brussels for the Open Days (http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/conferences/od2008/index.cfm). it’s a sort of huge multicultural orgy attended by thousands of people coming from across Europe to celebrate their local success. Thousands of civil servants taking some days off to inform their colleagues about what hell they did with European money, show off new outfits – some even folklorists – and networking, networking, networking. Obviously, it was packed with European officials who didn’t miss the opportunity to entertain the crowd with endless speeches about the beauty of the regions and how the commission has contributed to the their blossoming. “We love all of you, small people from all over Europe!”. 4 days of hell for me!
My mind couldn’t avoid going back to the glorious days in Washington where in a week i met so many people ready to take action. In less than two weeks I have already started working with one of the them for our programme in the Balkans. In Brussels, everybody was fond to hand out a little flyer and a business-card accompanied with “I will share this information with my colleagues back home and let you know”. Nobody will come back except for generic emails. I have already received two!
It might be too easy to dismiss this as an unproductive theatre. Officials from national governments usually do it very effectively in the media. However, they missed something. There, it’s happening – something that neither the strongest government in the world nor multilateral organisations have never been able to achieve: A new collective identity is being built overcoming national borers and cultural boundaries. This is more than pooling national sovereignty. This is an new way to make people feel part of something larger than their nation. It’s creating a new kind of citizen who looks over the national border. It’s the first step and the core of global citizenship. This is Europe and the European citizens!
Unfortunately, the institutions haven’t realized this, including the commission. They still need to organise conferences with a very practical purpose, instead of going straight for celebrations as the Greeks celebrated the Olympics once a year to recognize their common identity overcoming divisions and conflicts between the city-states which kept them busy for the rest of the year. I will do my bit and instead of waiting for silly standard messages i will make the step to make new contacts. I might start new projects with one of them in less than 2 weeks… if the Greek gods will favour my adventure.
