“Culture and interpersonal relationships are fundamental. History consists not only of tragedies and brutal energies used in thousands of parts of the world and now with the war in Ukraine near Europe. History also consists of positive values, mutual knowledge and the ability to look each other in the eye. Our Mediterranean is today the new theater where all this can be restarted. And of course all this has to be done by boys and girls. For this reason, the project of redesigned universities, founded jointly by universities in Europe and universities in North Africa, is alive and valid again. Nothing paternalistic or postcolonial. An absolutely equal project. In which all have the same dignity ».
Improve the Axis of the South
Romano Prodi, two-time President of the Italian Council and former President of the European Commission, speaks with enthusiasm and realism about a project that has always been close to his heart. “It was 2002 – he recalls – I was President of the European Commission. I thought that the future for Europe and Africa has some common if not symbiotic traits. At least that was how it had been until the outbreak of World War I: as late as 1914, at the end of the Ottoman Empire, communities of Italians, French and Greeks lived and traded in Africa and the Middle East. In 2002 we carried out the eastward enlargement of the European Union and for this reason too, I think it made sense to propose a major cultural action that would strengthen the axis of the South, and I drew up an informal dossier. But even before I spoke about it, the representatives of the northern countries in the Commission made it clear to me that they would never give their consent. They used a very crude expression that was almost demeaning to me: “waste of money” ».
The (re)launch of the proposal
So at that point the matter was put aside. But now the time is ripe. “Since then – according to Prodi, who was born in 1939 – there has been a phenomenon of enormous historical importance, such as the great migration of peoples. Migrations can come from anywhere on earth, as the Ukrainian exiles demonstrate, but it is clear that Africa, or rather the many of Africa, represents a starting point for millions of people, driven by wars, famine and climate change. Prodi, who discussed the project with the late David Sassoli (President of the European Parliament), shared his idea with the leaders of the current European Commission and with the diplomacy of the countries of North Africa: “First the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine did that project slowed down. In light of these momentous events, it is natural. But the reception of the idea is very different than twenty years ago: Biblical migrations from the south of the world have changed the mental hierarchies of everyone, including those of the representatives of the countries of the north. It is clear to everyone that the Mediterranean Sea is a long-term and structural problem that affects the European Union as a whole. On the African side, various diplomatic structures have shown great interest. Because they capture the diverse nature of the initiative, which is formative as well as cultural, political and economic ».
How the project is structured
The project has clearly defined numbers, in a naturally complex scenario: at least twenty new universities, each founded jointly by a European university (“initially Italy, France, Spain, Greece and Portugal”) and a university in Africa, each half the professors from one side of the Mediterranean and the other half from the other side, with the same proportion of students and with the obligation that each doctoral student spends half of his studies in one place and the other half in the second place. “The courses – according to Prodi – may only exclude those of religious culture and political culture. But they must include everyone else: economics, agronomy, engineering, mathematics, physics, biology. Imagine how the physiognomy of the Mediterranean and the systems of relationships would change if, in twenty years, half a million boys and girls moved from one shore to the other of our sea. We would have a new ruling class. And even among those who will not experience leadership positions in their lives, we will have new hearts, new minds and new eyes ».
New shared communities
For this to work, there must be no sort of vassalism by anyone: everything has to be 50 and 50, except for the financial obligations, where the European Union and European countries, at least initially, have to bear larger shares of the budgets of the new universities. “The historical trend – according to Prodi – has led to a shortage of human admixtures in the Mediterranean. The trade remained. But we must return to new forms of anthropological hybridization and to new shared communities. As Fernand Braudel said, for centuries the Mediterranean was the center of the world. For a long time, writes Lord Byron, Venetian and Neapolitan accents echoed in all ports. Smyrna, Alexandria in Egypt, Tunis housed whole neighborhoods of Europeans: fishermen and traders, farmers and masters, artisans and workers. Then all of this emptied. And in fact there are only shops, but they are soulless ».