“In an increasingly violent world, crossed by conflicts, in which the new president of the United States will most likely return to thinking in slightly more isolationist terms with respect to Europe and the need for Europe to defend itself or in any case from autocracies that threaten it. Fortunately, we are the free world which, however, must enter into a logic of rearmament as a form of deterrence against autocracies and despotisms if all this inevitably happens the issuance of public debt, that is, of our money, that of our children and our grandchildren, then why not imagine something similar to a Eurobond Culturefor example?”. This was said by the Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, in his opening speech, in Rome, of the small and medium publishing fair ‘More books, more free’reporting that he is “working with the Ministry of Culture on a proposal” of the kind that – he said – “I began to share with Rachida Dati, for example, in a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the European Council”.
Giuli, recalling that “the governor of the Bank of Italy yesterday made a very nice speech in Spain talking about the need to start reflecting again on the idea of the Eurobond, that is, the mutualisation of debt”, argued: “Why not imagine that a percentage of the money that we, our children, our grandchildren will commit to arming ourselves and creating military deterrence must not be committed so that the weapons we equip ourselves with are never used. And how do we protect ourselves from weapons, not to use them? Through culture, through books, through dialogue, through shared research. So this is the message that must pass here in Europe – stated Giuli – if possible in the West, in the whole world”. And again: “To the extent that we decide to share debt because Europe decides to be a little ‘ more sovereign and a little more independent, partly out of necessity, partly out of conviction, it becomes necessary to think about the possibility of defusing these weapons, diverting a percentage of expenditure for rearmament and common defense to be invested in culture”.
The owner of Via del Collegio Romano also said: “A few days ago I was at the European Council of Culture in Brussels and with my colleagues from the Union, we were sitting at a lovely horseshoe-shaped table for a private and Work. But that of the 27 Ministers of Culture was a soup kitchen, although the lunch was pleasant and well taken care of. Why soup kitchen? Because the European budget for culture from 2014 to 2020 amounted to 1.47 billion, i.e. nothing compared to the availability of the European states and even less compared to the needs of culture. Now we have reached 2.4 billion for the 2021-2027 time frame, which is still very, very little”. In this key, and also from the perspective of the Old Continent, the minister highlighted that he has “all the best intentions to put culture back at the center of the political agenda of this government and possibly of all European governments, but we need to think in continental terms, we need to think systemically, we need to understand that no one is self-sufficient”.
Giuli then recalled that “with the Mic we are about to intervene with 30 million of euros in the Culture decree to finance in particular the libraries. We are convinced – he underlined – that, under the definition of the Olivetti Plan, a project must be filled with content which shortens the distances between the center and the periphery, which gives voice, spending and reading capacity to those who are less advantaged”. More in specific, the Olivetti plan takes the form of “robust support for libraries, places of reading which are not only, as in the analogue era, places where one sits and reads a book, but places of sociality where one meets through contemporary technological devices We have resources, they are not very many: we must make all those we have available to the possibility of re-educating ourselves to the pleasure of shared intelligence and culture as sociality. Libraries are an alternative to isolation“, concluded Giuli.