Times have changed, just as they always have since the very beginnings of humanity. Whisked along by inventions, innovations, technological advances, environmental constraints, by a world connected beyond borders which, by means of the internet and social networks, has brought us, without it ever being said, to the noosphere, the sphere of human thought, anticipated by Teilhard de Chardin almost a hundred years ago. And because times change, the Community of the six founding members has become the Union of twenty eight member countries. We should rejoice.
Times have changed and Agence Europe has changed. It, too, had its “founding fathers” and has had, since, dozens of journalists, sub-editors, and others working unobtrusively in accounting, printing and distribution. Artisans of information who have made the renown of this daily newsletter that has been printed from its first day in blue in French and pink in English, forged its credibility which has caused it to be considered by some as the “bible of the European bubble”. What separates Agence Europe from the rest is that it has always been scrupulously careful to avoid mixing information and comment. Its information is raw, and in such detail that it has, from time to time, been seen by some as uninviting and unpalatable. Its trade mark has been to provide its readers with comprehensive information without explanatory embellishment - pure information, in short. But times have changed and some European institutions, including the Commission, have succumbed to the temptation of “coms”, of communication is all, believing that this is the way of better getting their message across. So, in order not to add to the torrent of communication, Agence Europe has chosen the path of change: henceforth, the task it has set itself is to highlight the information felt to be the most relevant, the most worthy of interest and the most meaningful. The information, too, that it will more than ever fish out ahead of the drift nets of communication where meaning is lost.
Even for Agence Europe, then, times have changed. Attachment to the purity of the information it provides cannot, however, be removed from its DNA. Hitherto, comment has always been contained in a separate, signed column - when, until not so long ago, the rest of the newsletter was anonymous, none of the articles being signed by their authors. In the beginning, there was the editorial which Emanuele Gazzo wrote in French before translating it into Italian. Gazzo's was the time of the European ideal, born of the Schuman Declaration, the time of taking wing towards a federal Europe, of the confident dialogue he had built with Monnet, the time of “activist officials”. Then, for over twenty years, there followed Ferdinando Riccardi's “Look Behind the News”, the time of achievements, great and small, of confidence in the long future for the European dream and in Jacques Delors, with his ever larger “Federation of Nation States”. In his column, Ferdinando Riccardi confidently traced the sometimes slow and often complicated process leading inexorably to an ever closer Union.
And then times changed a little more than usual; doubts crept in, concerns grew, and the reflex to turn in on oneself kicked in. From the start, the way that national political leaders have sought to conceptualise the European project reflects the thought that Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa credits to young Tancredi in “The Leopard”: if we want everything to remain as it is, centred on states, there has to be the appearance of complete change through the Europe that the states construct! Pressured by the financial crisis which almost swept away Greece and the most fragile countries and, more especially, the waves of refugees for whom Europe is the new promised land, national political leaders are falling prey to the temptation of every man for himself, safe behind hastily re-erected borders and not having to carry the responsibility of solidarity. In so doing, they are proving Machiavelli correct in his postulation almost 500 years ago in “The Prince”: “And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them”
Because times have changed, this is where we are. That is why the goal of this new column will be to provide beacons so that the irreparable does not happen. Michel Theys