The year 2020, in which the Conference on the Future of Europe will be launched, saw the succession of various traumatic events for the European Union that risk overshadowing this initiative. British Premier Boris Johnson’s election victory in December 2019, confirmed the British willingness to leave the EU, highlighting some elements of potential fragility of the integration project. The Covid-19 pandemic then unleashed an unprecedented global crisis, highlighting once again the need for greater European solidarity on the face of the inability of individual governments to cope on their own without putting health systems and their economic resilience at risk.
However, it is precisely in traumatic times such as these opportunities for collective reflection, such as the one proposed by the Conference on the Future of Europe, are essential for rethinking the process of European integration and reflecting on the need for greater solidarity.

At this juncture, within the European Cultural Festival “Lector in Fabula” which since 2018 has been organized in Conversano by the Di Vagno Foundation, the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), in cooperation with the Luigi Sturzo Institute and the Study Center on Federalism is organizing, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation, the second appointment of the “Citizenship Dialogues on the Future of Europe”.
The initiative, which will take place online, is part of the activities envisaged by the Conference on the Future of Europe because it aims to involve citizens, both directly and digitally, in a collective dialogue on the relaunch of the integration project European Union and the principle of solidarity in the post-Brexit and Covid-19 era.