The time for distraction is over. Europe is going through a crucial phase in its history, caught between international tensions, autocratic threats and its own structural weaknesses. We risk seeing the European dream fade away, with the erosion of its founding values and the reassertion of a logic of power that tramples on rights, democracy and freedom. The future is not written: that is why we are called to defend Europe and our way of life.

Michele Serra’s call for a large pro-European demonstration is not just a cry of alarm, but a concrete opportunity. Taking to the streets under a single flag, that of the European Union, means claiming a common identity that no crisis or division can erase. It is a call to shared responsibility. Europe can no longer be content to be just an idea, a market or a fragile compromise between national interests; it must acquire a political dimension capable of acting with authority on the world stage.

European sovereignty: a necessity, not a utopia

Mario Draghi recalled that, without effective sovereignty, Europe is doomed to irrelevance. Today, the Union is a political dwarf and risks no longer even being an economic giant, inadequate to protect its interests in a global context where, unfortunately, the law of the strongest seems to prevail, slow in accompanying and encouraging those technological, scientific and productive innovations that today mark the difference between growth and decline.

We see it in geopolitical crises, where we struggle to express a united and incisive position; in technological, military and energy dependence, which makes us vulnerable to external pressures; in the difficulties of managing migration and climate change, or ensuring common security; in global industrial competition. Europe must emancipate itself and give itself a single voice, no longer dependent on external powers, and a vision of the future. Building a common defence and a cohesive foreign policy is not a danger to nation states, but the only way to protect them. Do we feel protected today by national armies held in check by Putin’s aggression but also by the malicious threats of Trump and Vance? If you don’t make Europe, you don’t die, but you live as serfs. And that is perhaps worse.

The value of the square: a signal that cannot be ignored

There are those who wonder whether, in the age of algorithms and decisions taken behind closed doors, a street demonstration can still make an impact. The answer is yes. Taking to the streets is an act of visibility and belonging, proof that Europe is not just a bureaucratic construction, but a community of citizens determined to write their own future, putting their faces to it and being political with their bodies again.

That is why we wholeheartedly adhere to Michele Serra’s appeal. We invite everyone to fill the squares with the blue of the European flag and the yellow of its stars, so that those who govern understand that ‘Europe’ is not in Brussels, but in homes, factories, offices, schools, hospitals. We cannot stand idly by in the face of the disintegration of our continent. It is time to act, for ourselves, for our children and for future generations.

We will be there. Because Europe will continue to exist as long as there is someone willing to defend it.