In view of the political elections of next September 25, we have chosen to sign this spontaneous appeal that we feel is close to our founding values and to our way of operating for the integral development of people and communities. We are convinced, as stated in the appeal, of the need for the principle of “subsidiarity, that is, to reconnect with the energies of civil society because this is the most fertile and generative way of doing politics” and we are ready to work for a loyal and effective ” co-programming and co-design between public administrations, civil society and third sector networks ” to implement active policies for work, assistance to the most vulnerable, for the protection of the environment and for the promotion of sustainability, at a national and international level. Below is the text of the appeal, which you can sign HERE from the website nexteconomia.org
We are citizens and representatives of that civil society that is the backbone of this country and every day faces the challenge of creating value and values in factories, farms, in the tertiary sector, in schools, universities, social enterprises, in volunteering and in the associative life of this country. We are aware of both the relevance and exceptionality of this historical phase, and of the risks associated with this delicate passage towards the next elections, for this reason we want in our own way to “take the field” and be protagonists of this season by making our proposals clear and manifest, thus inviting the political forces to a virtuous competition. The crisis and the weeks of electoral campaign that await us risk on the one hand fueling hatred, anger and partisan conflicts among the most militant and on the other pushing reasonable and sensitive people to the margins generating disaffection and resignation. For this reason we feel the urgency to promote a transversal and inclusive alliance to connect social movements, civic experiences, entrepreneurial energies, intellectual and moral resources, national reformist parties and the best local political experiences. A political place of inclusive relationships and thought where we can dream and look far ahead as a country together with those political areas of the world that bet on peace and human rights, where social tensions are recomposed with concrete choices. We need to build something bigger, which recovers the now lost trust of citizens. Politics must be thought of in the forms of the third millennium, abandoning twentieth-century schemes and procedures, now dead forever. In this hour of history we need to be strong and clear-headed. The goal is to (re)start. Everyone brings their own brick to build the common home. The political class needs new competent and courageous people, capable of freeing hope and dreams. In any case, we will do our part on September 25 by going to vote and inviting everyone to do so, without party orders and with freedom of conscience, as free people as we are, not giving up collaborating with those who, in a credible way, we believe will come closest to the idea of the country for which we work every day through our activities and on which we firmly believe the future of our country is at stake. We cannot build the “future of the past” and therefore we ask some very simple things of those who are taking action to become part of the political class elected in our Parliament. First of all, a basic principle, that of subsidiarity, that is, to reconnect with the energies of civil society because this is the most fertile and generative way of doing politics. This means that in many areas and sectors of public life it is not necessary to reinvent everything from above, always starting from scratch, rebuilding and duplicating structures, but rather to recognize Socratically that we “do not know and cannot do it alone”, having the wisdom to draw on the enormous deposit of experiences, skills and good practices that are the true immense wealth of our country. The political forces that we will support will be those capable of recognizing first of all that the first resource to be valued is therefore that of the person and his expressiveness: active citizenship is the only lifeblood that can give strength and vitality to our democracy. In order for citizens not to be just resentful keyboard warriors but to feel like protagonists and builders of communities and civil progress in the territories, the new elected political class must promote with conviction and strength all those processes of active citizenship and mutualism that today make the country alive and vital: from co-programming and co-design between public administrations, civil society and third sector networks, promoted as the most generative approach by the Constitutional Court in a recent ruling, which builds welfare and care services for the future, to the development of energy communities to responsible consumption and savings paths. In short, everything that transforms us from sacrificial victims of events that play out above our heads to co-protagonists and conscious builders of our future. In the international arena, we ask the next parliament and government to anchor and actively contribute to that European policy, built over time thanks to the valuable contribution of many of our exponents and statesmen, which in recent times has offered us the very solid shield of a Central Bank and institutions that have guided the country through the storms of the pandemic shock with safe navigation on the financial markets and have made available with the PNRR in the most difficult economic period since the Second World War to today, significant resources greater than those of the Marshall Plan, combined with a valuable and fundamental stimulus for us to use intelligently and not waste the investments made. Resources that must not be wasted and around which many important games of our future are played in the field of infrastructure, energy, work and care. In the field of school and work, we ask for a commitment to invest decisively in continuous training and rapid and effective requalification paths in an increasingly difficult world where we live the paradox of the coexistence of hundreds of thousands of vacant jobs for which the necessary skills cannot be found and millions of young people who neither work nor study. We need a common battle on “decent work” that not only respects the dignity of the person but makes it flourish. We also ask for answers that have the intelligence to build conditions that make free, creative, participatory and supportive work possible, taking into account the constraints of global society and the possible countermoves that delocalization and unfair international competition on labor rights and environmental protection can generate, nullifying our interventions and perpetuating the logic of the race to the bottom of global competition that is played only on costs and prices and not also on the dignity of work and environmental protection. For this reason we look with great interest at the new important step forward of the European Parliament that, by voting on the Border Adjustment Mechanism, has for the first time put in place mechanisms that penalize unfair competition. We need a human Welfare, not only rethought and strengthened but capable of protecting and redeeming the last. For this reason, we believe it is essential to continue working to improve effective and well-functioning safety nets against poverty and the increasingly frequent shocks that risk causing ever larger segments of the population to fall into conditions of fragility and need, but which at the same time must not discourage or discourage reintegration into the world of work. Always keeping in mind that the satisfaction and richness of meaning of life do not depend on being permanent terminals of charity but on being able to contribute with one’s commitment to personal, family and civil progress. On the front of the climate and ecological challenge we ask for a true commitment to intercept that future now within reach given the trajectories of global technological progress, made of widespread and participatory production of energy from renewable sources that assure us true energy independence from foreign powers. Health, climate, convenience of price, protection from risks and volatility and energy independence push everyone in the same direction of a future made of companies capable of significantly reducing their production costs and increasing their competitiveness by becoming self-producers of energy, of energy communities, of agrivoltaics, of public buildings that, starting with schools, immediately exploit their enormous potential for energy production from abundant and freely available sources that do not depend on agreements with foreign countries. If the short term will necessarily and realistically also be made of other things we ask the government not to delay and not to miss the train of the future. Only a regenerated policy will be able to manage transitions by listening and not contrasting the cry of the earth with that of the poor. In the welfare and care sectors, increasingly important in a society where fragility and marginalization are unfortunately growing, we ask to treasure the best experiences in the field that focus interventions on the dimensions of listening and relationship that are able to bring together supply and demand for care and offer people in conditions of fragility and hardship activation paths that can restore dignity and pride because they offer opportunities for redemption that enhance all their possibilities to contribute to the community. Common elements that we find and have learned among others over the years in the experiences of health budgets for mental disabilities, work in prison that reduces recidivism and in active longevity paths. Someone might ask why, if we are aware of the gravity of the moment, values and ideas, we do not directly face the political challenge. If this obviously can and must be possible and praiseworthy for each of us taken individually, the answer is very simple. We do it with passion and we consider our work serious and important, we think it is essential to continue doing it to build a strong, rich and vital, supportive and cohesive social ecosystem that will allow our country to be resilient and continue on the path of civil progress despite the shocks of the economy and politics. We do not have the arrogance to think we are superior or capable of replacing the political class and we believe that the most generative way in this phase is precisely to offer tomorrow our contribution of cooperation and co-design but already today the stimulus to move in the desired direction. The success of our appeal will not be measured by the percentages of votes of this or that other force but rather by the ability to convince the political forces to embrace (measuring tomorrow its actual implementation) a simple agenda that gathers expectations and desires of all those who wake up every morning and commit to building a better country and community. A desirable and truly transformative agenda.
