HIKMA SUMMIT
OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The European Commission has been putting a huge effort since 2015 in trying to find a plan that could suit most of the national interests. Nevertheless, a common approach is not welcomed by nationalist political forces like the Italian, the French or the Hungarian ones, but more generally in the whole Union even if in different proportion.

The right-wing political campaigns focus on feelings: fear, hatred, loathing, and recreation of a lost national membership. Lacking concrete effective remedies, they focus on the illness rather than on the cure, with the result of a rejection of any possible common approach. The use of feelings in politics does not bring to tangible conclusions, history has shown it several times. The major problem then is that the left-side propaganda is an emotional one, too. The sentiments are contrary: hospitality instead of rejection, indignation against every form of closure, in a sort of idealism that has to clash against the hard reality: it is not possible to host every single asylum seeker in our continent. The questions remain: where are the answers? What do the leftists concretely propose? Their main aim in the last period has been that of opposing the right-wing slogans, yet fighting with ideals, too. As a consequence of it, a loss of influence of the traditional left parties in the whole Union was tangible in the last elections. Politics cannot be made on clouds of ideas, but rather on tangible data and proposals: these two fundaments are now missing on both sides.

Is it the end of the European cooperation as we are used to knowing it? Do we have to go back to the old realist thinking of nation-states, without taking into account the huge advantages of collaboration? I firmly reject this option: on the other hand, what I believe could be an effective remedy is an apolitical approach to this theme. We cannot but agree on the fact that the hurdle of defining a common framework lies in the political preferences of every singular nation, supposedly reflecting the interests of the citizens. But actually, what we all ask for, both the leftists and the conservatives, is an inclusive approach: inclusive in the sense that it should take into account the needs of both sides, of those who are escaping from a war, from a difficult situation or looking for a better life in our continent, and simultaneously of those who welcome, that already have their national worries and cannot be left alone facing such a phenomenon. Welcoming policies are not enough: they should be supported by structured inclusion plans, by a certain degree of freedom for every nation to decide how to apply such criteria, using education as the main way of spreading ideals, and not political propaganda.

The final question is: what do we want to achieve, a political predominance or a real, effective solution? Would it not be better to “think apolitical”?