On November 8th and 9th, 2022, the international seminar “More Europe. More social, greener, fairer” organised by ACLI - ENAIP (Associazioni Cristiane Lavoratori Italiani - Ente Nazionale ACLI Istruzione Professionale) took place. Around 70 representatives of workers' organisations from across Europe took part in the event. The seminar was supported by EZA and financed by the European Union.
The seminar began with the opening by curator Alain Fortis and a visit to the Bois du Cazier Museum in Marcinelle. The ACLI federations of the world thus returned to a symbolic place of Italian emigration. "Our story is here, and we wanted to dedicate our seminar to those who, before us, gave a voice to the miners, the workers who literally built Europe and paid their work with their lives," said the President of the Italian ACLI and the Confederation of International ACLI Emiliano Manfredonia.
The second session of the seminar took place at the Monceau sur Sambre Club in Charleroi, during which the theme of Italian migration to Belgium was examined between history and the present. After a welcome by Pietro Dalle Molle, Vice-President of ACLI Belgium and President of ACLI Charleroi, and Piergiorgio Sciacqua, Co-President of EZA, the Italian Consul General in Charleroi took the floor for an institutional welcome.
At the Representation of the Region of Tuscany in Brussels, the third session of the ACLI International Seminar was dedicated to the future of Europe. The introduction came from Simone Romagnoli, youth coordinator of ACLI, who reported on the "Europe Way" that touches many European cities and, thanks to the work of all young people, has generated a series of proposals for a fairer and more social world of work in Europe.
Luc Van der Brande, President of EZA and former Minister of Labor in Belgium, and Emiliano Manfredonia spoke about the importance of a Europe that is being built step by step but must show clear goals: creating peace and a reference for the whole world for a policy to protect the environment of the planet.
The last part of the third session was devoted to group work. This activity, led by Simona Bartolini and Paola Villa, was conceived as a moment of discussion between the different ACLI offices on the role of associations in the individual's migratory journey, the exchange of best practices and the solution of critical problems through joint efforts.
In the European Parliament, Dr. Cesare Bellomo explained how the European Parliament works and accompanied the group on their visit. Pietro Bartolo, Vice-President of the European Parliament's Commission dealing with Migration and Human Rights, closed the international ACLI seminar with an account of his experiences with encounters with migrants in Lampedusa.
The free movement of people is the cornerstone on which the whole construction of the rights of European citizens is based. However, it is a huge mistake to assume that freedom of movement is something that breaks down all other barriers that usually characterise the migration experience. In fact, it is the old basis of the European Union that since there is freedom of movement, EU citizens are non-migrants and because they are not migrants they face none of the barriers that migrants normally do.
Instead, the ACLI, based on its experience, reiterates the need to support migrants undergoing a mobility period or moving permanently abroad in everything related to the administrative procedures to be completed in the country of destination, as they communicate with the local institutions and often are also unfamiliar with the language.
Example Italy: 5,682,080 Italians live abroad, including more than 3,000,000 in Europe. This necessitates guidance and aid services to which traditional Italian clubs, although committed, find it difficult to respond. In fact, the Italian associations are victims of the aging of their members and are therefore less active on the one hand and less willing to respond to the needs of the new generations or new migrants on the other. For this reason, the phenomenon of “easy” associationism appears online through social networks, an associationism that is the protagonist both in pre-departure information and in assisting in the search for information and assistance. ACLI is at the forefront of this renewal in this process, it has been analysed internally and the contacts with the different clubs of Italians abroad have been re-established.
In this context, the most important new challenge was defined as the loneliness and lack of socialisation of young Italian expats.
The participants of the seminar concluded that migrants need to be able to integrate into the target community by trying to overcome the bureaucratic, social, and cultural integration difficulties in the country.