VL 2026 - L'anima nera dell'Europa

with PIERO IGNAZI, TONIA MASTROBUONI, OMRAN SHROUFI - moderated by ANNA MARIA GIORDANO Europe has tolerated member countries undermining the principles that govern Western democracies, without coups, palace assaults, or bloody repression, but with a progressive erosion of the foundations of essential rights. Extremist movements, spreading like wildfire across much of the EU, are no longer on the fringes: today, they work methodically to infiltrate institutions, build local consensus, rewrite memory, and seize power "from below." A plague that advances silently. It carries not flags, but ideas. Old ideas that seemed buried by history: racism, the cult of purity, anti-Semitism, biological hierarchy among human beings. Without fully sensing the alarm, democracy finds itself vulnerable in the heart of Europe. It is urgent to acknowledge this because the disease is contagious. PIERO IGNAZI Political scientist. An expert in comparative politics, he is a professor at the Alma Mater University of Bologna and an Affiliated Researcher at Cevipof, Sciences Po in Paris. He has published, among others, with Il Mulino: The Far Right in Europe (2000). Parties and Elections in Republican Italy (2022), The Excluded Pole. From Almirante to Meloni: The Flame That Never Goes Out (2023), and The Populist in a Double-Breasted Suit. Berlusconi in Italian Politics (2024). He edited the magazine Il Mulino from 2009 to 2012. He has collaborated with Il Sole 24 Ore, L’Espresso, and La Repubblica. He is a columnist for Domani. TONIA MASTROBUONI is a journalist and correspondent for La Repubblica from Germany and Eastern Europe. She covers international economics and finance, European diplomacy, and geopolitics. She has won numerous journalism awards, including the Premiolino in 2018. She is the author of L’inattesa for Mondadori. Angela Merkel, a Political Biography (2021) and Erosion: How Sovereignisms Are Sweeping Away Democracy in Europe (2023). He published The Plague: An Investigation into the Right in Germany (2025) with Feltrinelli. OMRAN SHROUFI is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Political Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, where he is a member of the Centre for Democratic Futures. He earned his PhD in Politics from the University of York, with a thesis on the emergence of pro-Israel far-right parties in Western Europe. His research focuses on far-right politics and its intersections with mainstream politics. ANNA MARIA GIORDANO is a journalist at Rai Radio3, one of the creators and hosts of Radio3Mondo, a program for which she is responsible. She produces a daily foreign press review at 6:50 a.m. and an in-depth program on international issues at 11:00 a.m. She created and hosted Radio3Europa and is the author and host of Lovely Planet, the Radio3 guides. She has edited weekly political, economic, and cultural news programs for Euronews. She is the co-founder of MediaAid, an association that supports international aid through the media. Video: Entract Cover photo: Luca d'Agostino/Phocus Agency © Vicino/Lontano - All rights reserved