“It is always nice to swim for these values, the values of Europe, we hope that after the pandemic they will be strengthened values”. Aria Spinelli, yellow bonnet like the buoy tied at the waist, comes out of the water as the sea begins to gnaw on the small beach of Calanave, in Ventotene. She is the great-granddaughter of that Altiero who eighty years ago, on this island, conceived together with fellow prisoners Eugenio Colorni and Ernesto Rossi the Manifesto on which our EU still rests. Also this year Aria Spinelli, a newborn girl who was waiting for her on the shore, took part in the Natalonga for Europe organized by EuropaNow! in collaboration with Acmos, Benvenuti in Italia and the representation of the European Union in Italy. Seventy swimmers, the bet against a western wind that is not at all friendly and the fundamental contribution of the Municipality of Ventotene and its inhabitants, from the boatmen to the restaurateurs to the artisans who created the eco-sustainable balloon launched for the event, have told for the third time how , in spite of the pandemic and the resilient sovereign sirens, a feeling of adherence to European values as a strong glue resists among people.
“And the Europe we want is the one we see embodied by these swimmers, all together, the most athletic and the least capable, a Europe that leaves no one behind” repeats the mayor Gennaro Santomauro who gave the island and its initiatives a strong pro-European identity imprint. Here, in the hours in which Natalonga was organizing its third edition, the promoting associations also launched the European coffee campaign, a network to discuss the future of the old continent in a transnational way, imagining it, a not too distant future, as the Republic of Europe.