Year XXXIX, Number 1, July 2026

Giulio Saputo

Deputy secretary-general of the European Movement in Italy. Member of the national executive of the UEF-Italy.

Decivilization

With the Trump-led dismantling of the international order, competitive nationalism and protectionism are now setting the pace in a world marked by conflict. What we are experiencing is not so much the dangers of "deglobalization," but rather what Horkheimer calls "decivilization," in which individualization, once a factor of progress, has become an element of reaction (we have moved from autonomy to authoritarianism), leading us into a new form of barbarization. The process that had transformed French peasants into "citizens" and immigrants into "Americans" has been reversed. Globalization has shifted the boundaries between civil society, new social actors, and the state. Numerous actors have gained increasing freedom of action from the regulatory power of institutions, creating the need to restore the supremacy of politics at the supranational level.

Between Light and Shadow

In response to the limitations of national politics, millions of non-governmental organizations have emerged around the world, forming a new civil society that plays a crucial role in mobilizing public opinion. The end of the great utopias and ideologies is nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, fueled by a postmodern skepticism that in reality conceals a conservative impulse. Following the latest technological revolution, the old forms of political organization have become obsolete. The central fact of globalization is that the condition of citizens within a nation-state is now beyond the control of that country's laws. Today more than ever, the slogan "no globalization without representation" remains relevant. This reflects a synthesis of "emancipatory catastrophism": the idea that universal threats require universal rights, duties, and institutions.

A Multipolar World

In the 21st century, there are no longer two superpowers, but rather a group of medium-sized powers competing with one another. In a multipolar system, a balance of terror is impossible, and the risk of conventional or nuclear conflicts cannot be ruled out. The fundamental objective of the near future will be to find the conditions for a "peaceful coexistence" upon which the reform of the United Nations can be envisioned, finally bringing order to international relations and preventing ecological catastrophe. As shown by the modest progress achieved through climate COPs, as well as by the inability to renegotiate global inequalities and build a stable global peace, we remain far from this goal. Ours is a political drama that must be resolved before we end up subordinated to new spheres of influence: institutions are needed to guarantee democracy and the redistribution of resources.

A Copernican Revolution

It is no longer possible to imagine governing the contemporary world through individual nation-states or through the technocratic mechanisms of "global governance." Instead, we must demand the repoliticization of expanding areas of globalization and modernity. We must rethink the very role of the state by cosmopolitanizing it (that is, by encouraging regional integration in order to restore sovereignty to citizens) and revolutionizing our idea of democracy, reflecting on representative, deliberative, and participatory multilevel processes. Planetary emergencies require action on a global scale, the implementation of which cannot wait until democracy has prevailed everywhere. To pacify the world, we must accept the principle of coexistence among different cultures and socio-political systems. The interest of humanity's survival must prevail, ensuring – at least in the short to medium term – the coexistence of differences. In the long term (which can only be discussed if we still have a future), we may aspire to peaceful competition among models.

What Is to Be Done?

The way forward for a planet facing the danger of collapse must be to support the centripetal forces of planetary integration. Throughout history, empires have been the great organizations capable of holding together vast geographical areas and diverse cultures. Today, they represent one of the forms of supranational domination. Federalism is the true alternative: it is the political doctrine that guarantees freedom and supranationality without imperial domination. It is the model embodied by the ongoing experience of European unification.

Wherever the opportunity arises, it must be seized in order to bring into public debate the idea of regulating the relationship between humanity, technology, and nature, overcoming the dogma of national sovereignty. There is nothing utopian about this: every structure that appears natural to us is, in fact, historical. As Altiero Spinelli rightly stated:

"In the history of civilization, the common good has successively been identified with the city-state, the empire, the social class, and the nation. We now stand at the threshold of an era in which the common good may finally be conceived as that of humanity as a whole."

Europe and the World

Outside the EU, the planet is still governed in an imperial manner, and violence in foreign policy remains a useful tool for compensating for a lack of domestic consensus or for resolving international disputes. Europe is an exceptional area: the only form of geopolitical organization that continues to expand through consensus rather than conflict. Despite all its limitations, the European Union is the most powerful buffer against the forces of globalization that exists in the world. Yet all those who wish to attack it do so in the name of a divided memory: the idea that it is possible to return to the old nation-states.

We can continue to reproduce the reassuring myth in which we are innocent and bear little responsibility. Or we can accept the historical reality according to which Europeans exploited the world's resources for half a millennium, created something unprecedented in the second half of the twentieth century, and must now contribute to deciding how events will unfold in the twenty-first century. Potentially, Europeans are something greater than their myths, but the crisis they are facing prevents them from seeing the strength of an example placed at the service of all – an ideal capable of acting in the future to develop new hope among contemporary societies.

The Urgency of Building Europe

The completion of political union in the Old Continent would represent a model of peaceful coexistence capable of offering a form of governance for sustainable globalization, able to overcome the limits of multiculturalism and abstract cosmopolitanism. It would embody an idea of open, multilayered identity, founded on the capacity to absorb conflict into a democratic dialectic characterized by dialogue.

This is not simply the sum of individual nationalisms, but rather an added value based on the humanization of relations among people and institutions. Interculturalism, democracy, pluralism, federalism, and Europe itself must therefore be understood as processes to be achieved by society, not as something fixed or immutable. They constitute both a civilizational framework and a specific objective within which individual contingent political struggles can be contextualized.

Only in this way will Europe cease to be "something" and become "someone" for Europeans and for the world. It is not a matter of "surrendering sovereignty," but of reclaiming it.

Europeanism Is Not Enough

The utilitarian narrative of a "cash-machine Europe" has not been successful, and for years the field of identity politics has been occupied solely by national-populism, while the functionalist narrative has failed to convince. In order to keep the historical window of the European project open, it is essential to regain the support of citizens.

We are witnessing the consolidation of a dual political competition, both national and supranational, in which almost all political forces define themselves as "pro-European"; the term itself has now lost much of its meaning. Today's Europe has therefore lost its sense of idealism because it is no longer "a promise," but often a scapegoat for the failures of national politics.

It possesses a certain degree of power, yet it does not function where it is most needed: in economic, foreign, and defense policy. In practice, without the instruments necessary to act, the Union risks slipping out of history one crisis at a time.

What Is Needed? A Budget and a Defense Policy

To move beyond the realm of utopia, Europe must immediately promote effective and impactful policies. In order to finance an adequate European budget, it will be necessary to complete the banking and capital markets union as soon as possible, identify new own resources by equipping the Union with autonomous fiscal capacity, and allow it to permanently issue its own debt securities with the aim of providing the markets with a European safe asset. Only in this way will it be possible to manage the ecological transition, preserve the welfare state, and safeguard inclusion policies.

At the same time, the factor of time is crucial in terms of integration: failure to achieve immediate progress in strategic autonomy or enlargement could, in the long run, trigger further disintegrative forces that would be difficult to control. A European foreign and defense policy is needed with the objective of building peace and reducing the various global causes of conflict.

This is the dual nature of what Europe must become: on the one hand, it must have the strength to assert its own voice within the chorus that shapes the dialogue of multipolar globalization; on the other hand, it must offer, through its example, an alternative possibility to the imperial scenario.

What Is Needed? Institutional Reform

However, the Union is not yet the Federation envisioned at Ventotene Manifesto. At present, it appears as an emerging post-national normative order, an evolving transnational decision-making space. Ideas require institutions in order to achieve historical realization, but it is impossible to preserve institutions without solid policies.

Next Generation EU represented a historic step forward, but it was not enough. In order to prevent the ongoing process from coming to a halt, immediate action must be taken to consolidate a sovereignty belonging to Europeans themselves. What is needed is a true federal political union, achieved through institutional and constitutional reform, as has repeatedly been requested by the European Parliament.

Mario Albertini had already observed that nation-states gained strength through integration and, paradoxically, the illusion of still being actors capable of intervening effectively in national and international politics. The situation has worsened because, after more than ten years of uninterrupted crises, governments, through the Council, have trapped the Union in the paralysis of mutual vetoes.

Conclusions

Many will think that this idea resembles a dream more than a feasible initiative. But the real utopia would be to believe that the world can change by itself, or that the problems of a borderless present can be solved by the return of borders, war, and xenophobic hatred. Today, "truth is simple, reality is complex": the self-absolving cowardice of those who merely wish to preserve the present is no longer acceptable. Political commitment is the ability to make the ideal real.

People are tired of technocratization, of being treated like creatures incapable of imagining a possible tomorrow that is no longer simply "yesterday." Many today say of Europe what Klemens von Metternich said of Italy in 1847: that it is "only a geographical expression." We must react; we cannot surrender the future, hope, and freedom. The world's resistance to imperialism begins with us.