This week the “Il Grand Continent” summit was held in Italy, an annual international forum organized by the interdisciplinary group “Le Grand Continent”, which brings together political leaders, academics and experts to discuss the main contemporary geopolitical challenges. With a strong European orientation and … From a global perspective, the meeting addresses topics such as democracy, security, energy transition, economy, artificial intelligence and global governance. Senior officials – including heads of state and European leaders – participate in its sessions and its aim is to provide a space for strategic reflection on the transformations shaping today’s multipolar world. Europe is the theme of the meeting and democracy is its subject.
As part of this event, moderated by Simon Kuper, journalist from the ‘Financial Times’, Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, met at the ‘How Democracy Thrives’ table; Ukrainian Oleksandra Matviichuk, president of the Center for Civil Liberties and laureate of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize; Philip Pettit, professor of politics and human values at Princeton, as well as Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of the opposition in Belarus, and Yolanda Díaz, second vice-president and minister of labor and social economy of Spain. Once the statement is delivered, the overview of the conversation is devastating. The listener doesn’t know whether to rub his eyes or pull his hair out.
While the Spaniard Díaz bites the cap of her Bic pen and talks about decent housing for young people, about a Europe engaged in Pride celebrations in Budapest and in reducing working hours, Tsikhanouskaya intervenes to highlight the difference between talking about democracy in a democratic country and doing the same in another where authoritarianism prevails. Tikhanovskaya’s intervention does not contradict anyone. She’s just trying to explain herself. Unlike Díaz, democratically elected by the Spanish, Sviatlana burst into Belarusian politics in 2020 by replacing her husband, detained by her country’s forces, in the electoral race. Tsikhanouskaya became a presidential candidate and Lukashenko’s main rival. After the electoral fraud and under pressure from the regime, she was forced to go into exile in Lithuania, from where she took over the leadership of the democratic opposition.
Called to the same debate, what they say resembles the North. Yolanda Díaz speaks of a democratic system and the other, Tsikhanouskaya, of her defenestration. Strange is this Europe in which some fable a demoscopic government, while others try – even in exile – to resist any totalitarian experience. Díaz chews his pen, while, in a crucial moment, the Ukrainian Oleksandra Matviichuk assures: “I am ready to give Trump my Nobel if he achieves a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” Listening to them, I don’t know if Yolanda Díaz is playing democracy or if it’s Tsikhanouskaya and Matviichuk who are literally risking their necks.