Nessun Dorma

Very glad to exchange with Italian President Mattarella - there was a lot to discuss. From competitiveness to EU defence, security, and migration. Europe is alert and ready, Nessun Dorma, wrote Antonio Costa, EU Council President on his Twitter account on 20 May 2025.

The day after Ursula von der Leyen replied: You have always worked to place Italy at the heart of Europe and to bring Europeans closer together. You have called Europe to be more ambitious, from leading economically to standing with Ukraine.

Nessun Dorma is an aria from one of the great works of the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. But why did the EU leaders quote the last act of the Turandot opera with such passion? Costa and von der Leyen were responding to the President of the Italian Republic, who was on a two-day visit to the European capital.

In a stirring address marking Europe Day on 9 May 2025, the Italian Head of State issued a clear call to the European Union: Nessun Dorma - let no one sleep. This phrase, borrowed from Puccini's opera, served as a powerful metaphor for the vigilance and unity required of Europe due to mounting geopolitical challenges.

He emphasized that the EU must confront its challenges with courage, determination, and foresight to preserve the invaluable heritage of rights and values that underpin its integration project. He warned that failing to do so risks losing the shared prosperity, substantial equality, inviolable freedom, lasting peace, and solid democracy that define the Union.

Highlighting the pressing international developments and strategic threats, Mattarella emphasised the EU’s need to face difficulties with renewed vigour and determination. He called for creative efforts proportionate to the dangers looming, to preserve the ideal of a strong, just, and peaceful Europe - a bulwark of hope for future generations.

Mattarella's message poignantly reminds us that the European project is not a static achievement but a dynamic endeavour requiring constant vigilance and commitment. The citation Nessun Dorma was a call to all Europeans to remain alert and united in safeguarding the continent's future.

Together with two other Italians, Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta, Mattarella has been trying for months to boost the EU. Nevertheless, there is a difference between hearing the calls, listening to them, and taking action.

The challenge

While autocrats worldwide begin to dominate power, Silicon Valley tech oligarchs are revealing their true nature. As long as they were not powerful enough, they had to pretend to be allies of liberal democracy - sometimes leaning a bit left or right.

Now that they see that the liberal world order is on the verge of collapse, they no longer hide that their worldview aligns much closer with that of far-right elites. They side with Donald Trump, the AfD in Germany, Javier Milei or Nigel Farage.

Only one institution offers hope in the world: the European Union. It is no coincidence that autocrats and tech oligarchs hate the EU. Not a day goes by without them attacking Brussels. They do this not for pleasure but because there is something at stake. Attacking an institution that no longer has power doesn't make sense.

We are now in a time defined by disorder and raw power - a period that echoes the Middle Ages. Limiting our perspective to the last 70 years of Western politics fails to capture the true essence of Trump. He is unpredictable, self-centred, and indifferent to established rules. History shows us that leaders like Trump have always existed. The time has come for a wake-up call: the liberal world is on the brink of collapse. Chaos, once the tool of rebels, has become a power mechanism.

Comparing President Donald Trump's leadership methods with those of feudal leaders can be illuminating - not in the sense of equating their historical contexts, but in analysing certain stylistic, structural, and behavioural parallels.

Donald Trump strongly emphasised personal loyalty, often valuing it above traditional institutional hierarchies or norms. In feudal societies, loyalty to the lord was paramount—often superseding loyalty to broader laws or legitimate structures. Lords rewarded vassals with land and protection in exchange for allegiance and service.

He often used divisive rhetoric, positioning himself against the "deep state", media, or liberal elites, while rallying a populist base. Feudal rulers usually played rival factions against one another to maintain power, ensuring no single group could consolidate enough influence to challenge their authority.

While the US President is not a feudal lord in a literal sense, certain leadership traits, such as emphasis on personal loyalty, transactional politics, and strongman pageantry, bear striking similarities to feudal rule styles. These comparisons offer insight into the enduring appeal of charismatic, centralised authority, even in modern democratic societies.

Public opinion has been hijacked by illiberal orators and authoritarian technocrats pretending that isolationism, tariffs, and closed frontiers will save the citizens from their daily problems. Those orators and technocrats capitalize on the growing insecurity by creating chaos in our democracies. At the same time, they consider that privacy is an archaic concept and that frictionless information flow is the highest value regardless of the quality of the information.

The new technocrats claim to embrace enlightenment values, but they are leading an antidemocratic movement. They are building systems to rewire communications, remake human social networks and insinuate artificial intelligence into daily life. And this is to impose false beliefs on a population that is neither consulted nor well-informed.

Corporations like f.e. Google, Instagram, and Twitter - X according to Elon Musk - have been as damaging to individual rights, civil society, and global democracy as Facebook. Considering how generative AI is now being developed, we should remain alert for that damage to be multiplied many times in the years ahead.

The solution

Only the EU can build a safe haven in this world of digital dictatorships. The EU has to show strong  leadership, vision, and courage to set Europe on the path to a sustainable future that realises the rights of all people and respects planetary boundaries. We have entered an era in which the values at the heart of Europe - democracy and participation, equality and social justice, solidarity and sustainability, respect for the rule of law and human rights - are being undermined.

In such uncertain times, European citizens seek a stronger focus on those core European values. They seek economic, social and environmental well-being. In March 2027, our Union will celebrate its 70th anniversary, when the Treaty of Rome was signed. It is now or never that the Union should take actions with the involvement of all MS that share a need to continue on the path to integration based on its founders' shared values and ideas. Till then, and long after, Nessun Dorma!