We are undoubtedly living in interesting times: times of change, times of rupture, in which from one day to the next, decades-old balances and economic-political perspectives fall apart in the space of moments, seconds, tweets, statements or sudden military actions.

The reality is that we live in one of those moments that sublimate history: made up of great decisions, acts, improvisation, flair, genius, wit and also a necessary dose of cynicism. We need, perhaps more than ever, a political class that not only has the ambition to live its own time, but also to mark it, shape it and interpret it through social-political instruments.

A man like David Sassoli, a statesman, one of those who understood the need to restore dignity to the authentic political act, said that Europe was not an accident of history. I follow and add: Europe is history, and its call is getting louder and louder.

A united Europe is the great ambition, the challenge of our time. In an era in which everything is uncertain, and in which the prospects of international relations are being redefined (thanks also to the American presidency of Donald Trump, which should be read as the sublimation of a widespread political sentiment in the United States), we Europeans cannot afford to simply keep up with the times. We cannot afford to neglect choices that are vital for the survival and expansion of our liberal, democratic, Western social model.

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This is not the time for fear

Now is not the time to pull the handbrake in front of the gates of necessary progress. It is the time for big changes. It is the time to forcefully abolish the right of veto in the European Council that still oppresses and stifles the blue giant’s action. It is time to firmly implement the strategic necessities of Mario Draghi ‘s report and to concretely realise the economic vision of the single market proposed by Enrico Letta, making Europe truly what it deserves to be: a place of experimentation, growth, innovation, capable of creating giants and not dwarfs, able to compete and excel globally.

The time has come for the European model to make the long-awaited leap forward, without allowing itself to be seduced by those who would have it divided, fragmented, weak and powerless in the face of the whirlwind of international relations.

More than ever, we need a Europe that knows how to impose itself and not be imposed, and interpret its need for economic renewal and expansion, understanding its role as a privileged interlocutor for stability: from Mercosur to the new prospects with the Global South, from partnerships with Mark Carney’s enlightened Canada to economic relations with India. The time has come to take a leadership position, without ever neglecting the importance of a political proposal of social attention. Indeed, it would be a capital sin to ignore the very principles that legitimise political action: defending the interests of the community and citizens, from the last to the first.

Which, by the way, we already see, would be virtually impossible to do consistently without a united Europe.

The now intolerable fear of going up

More than the fear of falling, I often feel a fear of climbing: the fear of being big. The fear of stepping into the shoes of personalities like Helmut Kohl, like Alcide De Gasperi, like François Mitterrand. Perhaps because one is aware of the moral and physical travail that accompanies greatness in identifying oneself in public affairs, in choosing the most impervious path, not always the most popular, but the most ambitious and far-sighted.

And so we often find ourselves powerless in an ambiguous limbo, in a Shakespearean being or not being: to be economically, militarily and politically united or to be divided and weak; to be leaders or vassals; to be a superpower or to float in the tepid waters of those who do not face the storm at the helm of the ship.

The fact is that Europe today lives in the sad condition of an undefined Peter Pan, a middle age with flashes of what could be an accomplished adulthood.

The time has come to grow up.
To the political class I say: do not evade the call of history.

To posterity the arduous judgement.