With Antonio Megalizzi I had a personal and very direct dialogue. At the end of 2017, I had spent several weeks trying to convince him to run in the 2018 general election, the first in which sovereignist sentiments and the populist wave were sweeping through Italian public opinion with violence and vigour. Antonio, with his enthusiasm for Europe and his lucid and passionate way of telling the story, was a concrete response to all this.
After saying for weeks that he didn’t feel ready, when the lists were already filed he wrote to me: ‘Next time I’ll run‘. And I: ‘But I told you so!‘.

I confess that I reread that exchange at least once a year, on the anniversary of his death. A memory that makes me smile and at the same time breaks my heart.

Antonio Megalizzi, a young Italian reporter, had a dream: to report on the European institutions, to bring them closer to citizens and make them understand their importance. He was convinced that journalism could break down the barriers of incomprehension and indifference that separate people from the great collective challenges of our time. His life was brutally cut short on 14 December 2018, at the age of just 29.

On 11 December 2018, at the Strasbourg Christmas market, 29-year-old Chérif Chekatt, a French citizen of Algerian origin, carried out a terrorist attack using a knife and a firearm. Antonio Megalizzi and his friend Bartosz Orent-Niedzielski, a journalist like him, were there in the company of two girls, when they were approached by Chekatt, who fired his bullets at them. Only the girls were unharmed, saved by the two friends, who stood between them and the attacker, being shot in the head. The two young men went into a coma: Megalizzi died after three days, Orent-Niedzielski after five.

He was not the target of the terrorist violence, but that damned assassin could not have known that he had killed the most profound and sincere interpreter of that humanist and liberal culture against which he had railed.

Antonio’s story is one of overwhelming passion, the idea that Europe is not just a distant bureaucratic entity, but a concrete opportunity for peace, dialogue and progress. “I am in love with the European Union,” he said. He spoke about his experience in Strasbourg with an infectious enthusiasm, he wanted to be a full-time European journalist and dreamed of creating a young and innovative media, able to tell Europe without filters, with new eyes, and to make it understandable and close to everyone.

Antony had realised one crucial thing: the main obstacle to an increasingly united and strong Europe is the short-sightedness of national narratives. The traditional media, anchored in a provincial perspective, continue to look at European events with deforming lenses, bending them to the logic of weak domestic politics. This approach not only fuels prejudice and distance, but also deprives European citizens of clear and accurate information on institutions where their daily lives are really decided and influenced.

Antonio knew that changing the narrative is essential to build a true European identity.

When in September, on a warm evening in Viterbo, with Filippo Rossi we finally decided to start this small and complicated adventure of L’Europeista, I thought of Antonio.

The Europeist is our response to your call. It is a militant, trans-party project open to all those who share the vision and the need for a protagonist Europe. We want to carry forward Antonio’s message: that Europe is not an abstract thing, but a concrete and undeniable commitment.

The work of the Antonio Megalizzi Foundation over the years has reminded us how much his dream lives on. Thanks to them, Antonio’s memory is not just a memory, but a source of inspiration for many. We will contact them soon, to put ourselves at their disposal. We need to work as a team to build the Europe Antonio dreamed of telling about.

One last thing, on a personal note: next time, Antonio, you run for office.