A chance meeting at the harbor in Aegina yesterday with Stratos Pantavos was a welcome development for me because the Steering Committee of the Aegina Active Citizens’ Association, of which we are both members, is not programmed to meet until 28th March and there is a lot to catch up.

Stratos has been with our initiative around Capodistrias and, for a period, Altiero Spinelli, right from the beginning, i.e. for nearly twenty years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCDso57HBV4

He co-chaired the meeting at which we were addressed by the late Giulietto Chiesa during the visit of this distinguished Italian politician (and former Europarliamentarian) to our island https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wPniHFeXiM&t=7s

He chaired another meeting on European integration in 2019 https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=727

The east-west orientation that Giulietto Chiesa (and indeed Spinelli) were attempting to rescue has been replaced in our day by a new orientation seeking to integrate “the global south”.

If he were still with us today Chiesa would (arguably) be part of this.

Stratos is well suited to link our initiatives past with its present, particularly given the emergence of activists intellectuals such as Lorenzo Maria Pacini.

Can a bridge be built between voices such as this and their evident and/or would-be counterparts in the “global south”? https://main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1444

The transition is not going to be managed entirely in English. The Italian and Greek languages will play a larger part in the proceedings, and for that Stratos is a more suitable than I am, for I know only the latter language, not the former (though I did finish Latin at school).

Wayne Hall