Afghanistan has the reputation of being the 'graveyard of empires’. This formula underlines the historical tendency that foreign powers – for example, the Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great, more recently the British Empire and the Soviet Union and now the United States and its allies – failed in the task of pacifying Afghanistan.

It is particularly moving, for me, to be here today. It is moving, first of all, on a personal level, as a woman, as a human being. In a place like this, we are forced to face one of the great Unthinkables of human nature. The abyss of evil. The fact that human beings like us, 77 years ago, were capable of such cruelty.

America has suffered a defeat in Afghanistan as great as that in Vietnam, but President Biden pushes on with his domestic agenda. He shrewdly divided his infrastructure bill into a $1 trillion traditional part (roads and bridges), which won enough Republican votes to pass in the Senate

War on terror

While we condemn the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, we also condemn the disproportionate reaction to this by the US. The global war on terror saw calling countries as “Axis of Evil” and dividing the Islamic world for ever; although not a single Afghan was involved in the 9/11 attack.

We have a mass global movement, maybe somewhat disjointed, but nevertheless with a common purpose to save the planet. It is an example of where international cooperation can work – largely driven by civil society – but a symbiosis between governments and between government and general public that has seldom been seen in any other political enterprise.

On August 9^th, the IPCC Report (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was published. This report updated to 2020 is based on 14,000 studies carried out by experts from 195 countries.

On 14 July, the Commission will present its Fit for 55 package of proposals to extend the scope of carbon pricing to sectors that are currently excluded, notably transport and domestic heating. A revision of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) will be part of a package of energy and climate laws, but the ETS will continue to be the main tool to achieve the goal of at least 55% emission reduction by 2030.

A question that I have asked myself in view of this meeting on the Ventotene Manifesto is the following: if Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi had lived at the time of the pandemic, what would they have written that would be more than or different from the 1941 text?

The conference on the future of Europe, organized by the European Union (EU), has now been launched. It invites Europeans from the 27 Member States to reflect, via a multilingual digital platform, on their visions of the Europe to come. The conclusions of the discussions will be drawn in spring 2022.

Key points

• The current review of the Regulation on Europarties must go beyond funding and procedural considerations to address the key issue of clarifying the nature and role of these parties.

The (six-month) Slovenian presidency of the Council of the European Union brought to the forefront once again the problem of EU enlargement to the Western Balkans and, consequently, that of the compatibility between the values professed in general by the Eastern European countries and those of the EU.

A recent judgment of the Constitutional Court of Germany appeared to call into question the principle of the primacy of European law over national law, as well as

Anti-fascist emigration to Latin America does not date from the beginning of the Second World War but from 1922 (Italy), 1933 (Germany), 1939 (Spain)... and accelerates with the Nazi offensive for France and the other countries of continental Europe.

Among the negative aspects of globalization, we can highlight the appearance of large criminal networks whose structure and activities easily transcend national boundaries. These networks operate by the same logic as any multinational company, but dedicated to illicit activities.

After Brazil's return to democracy with the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution and the first direct election of the president in 1989, following 21 years of military dictatorship (1964-85) and 5 years of transition political (1985-89), the country made progress for indigenous populations,

On May 15,  the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe elected Senator Roberto Rampi as general rapporteur on the Report on “Freedom of Media, Public Trust and the People's Right to Know“.

In an interview with EURACTIV, Sandro Gozi dismissed as “hilarious” the calls by the European conservative and far-right parties for a deep reform of the EU, in view of the debate^[i] on the future of Europe, saying the demands reflect the institution as it already exists.

Carter Malkasian

The American War in Afghanistan: A History

Oxford University Press,Oxford, 2021

Christopher Coker

The Rise of the Civilizational State

Polity Press, Cambridge, Oxford, Boston, New York, 2019

Alfred de Zayas

Building a Just World Order

Clarity Press, Atlanta, 2021

Jurist, Professor of Constitutional Law in the School of Law of La Sorbonne - Paris 1; Former member of the Superior Council of the Judiciary; President of the Scientific Council of the French Association of Constitutionalists; member of the Scientific Council of the International Academy of Constitutional Law.