"Gorizia and Nova Gorica belonged
to different political worlds, and even if they had only ten
inhabitants, for what they did, they would be symbolic enough."
"They must make people understand that the world can change even
for the good, not only for the bad." Romano Prodi is convinced
of this as he talks about Europe and enlargement in an interview
with Il Piccolo and Messaggero Veneto today, as the two Gorizias
prepare to become the European Capital of Culture in 2025.
With Ukraine, Gaza, and the Red Sea crises, "it is doubly
important" to spread this message, Prodi underlines, "because it
is against the tide. There is war, but there are also peoples
who have united instead of slaughtering each other. Today, it is
symbolically vital to show how the EU has created peace within
it. Then we go to the European elections. People will understand
that Europe has made this possible."
The former EU Commission president remarked that the Gorica
border was the first barbed-wire border he saw during his
university years "between 1959 and 1961." In 2004, Prodi
celebrated its fall when Slovenia joined the EU.
"I have always believed that the former Yugoslavia and
Albania were part of Europe," Prodi added, speaking of
enlargement, "we are very late because of the delays in
negotiations caused by France with Albania and Macedonia. It is
a process that must go on. There is no obstacle as these
countries do not have such a great economic weight to create
disturbances or problems. Certainly, they must be accompanied by
a change in European institutions, but this should have been
done with the 2004 enlargement," "instead it did not happen."
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