Rearmament distances peace
Together we build an anti-war movement in a Europe of solidarity

The call for a demonstration on 15 March next, born from an idea of Michele Serra and picked up first by La Repubblica, then by parties and movements, does not convince us. Especially today when Europe, through the 'Rearm Europe' programme, chooses to spend 800 billion euros on an enormous rearmament programme.

Eight hundred billion euros spent on stockpiling weapons, supplying our armies, filling our arsenals with bombs and drones. This is not the Europe we want. That is why, on 15 March, we of Un Ponte Per non will be in the square.

These are funds that would further impoverish already meagre budgets, putting the growth of military spending and the arms business before the necessary investments in the social, for an ecological transition, to combat economic and gender inequalities. As we witness the collapse of the value of international law in increasingly unstable geopolitical scenarios, we fear that this square does not represent us.

We are convinced pro-Europeans, but not of this Europe that makes war to seek peace. We are in favour of disarmament and against nuclear rearmament, and we support the need to resume the path begun in Helsinki in 1975 for the creation of a common and shared security system. We would like to relaunch, 30 years after the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference, the idea of a Mediterranean that is a sea of peace and cooperation.

These modern times have little to do with the beautiful post-war Europe, the 'free and united' Europe that was imagined in Ventontene. Today, the American dream is a violent act to monetise the money invested over the years in military aid: it claims chunks of Ukraine, dreams of building resorts in Gaza, threatens invasions while starving the world, cutting global spending on international cooperation.

And what does Europe do? It goes into debt and spends on weapons, fortifies itself on the skin of human, social and environmental rights. To make money for the military industry, it jeopardises decades of democratic freedoms and the possibility of stopping the ecocide of our planet.

It is not enough to say 'Europe' if we do not say 'which' Europe we want; if we omit from that appeal the opposition to rearmament and do not even accidentally mention the genocide in Palestine or the very serious attacks launched against the institutions responsible for the protection of international law such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

Aware that many pacifist forces will be in the streets in many Italian cities, carrying peace flags, and with respect for all the citizens who will decide to demonstrate for their idea of Europe, we at Un Ponte Per choose not to participate in the call of realities and parties that too often confuse increasing military spending with building peace.

We know that new appeals have been made, aimed at correcting the initial line all bent towards rearmament and the continuation of wars. This is a positive fact, but in our opinion insufficient to change the potential instrumental use towards militarist drifts that some of the adherents explicitly hope for.

What is needed is a collective campaign to demand not to invest in weapons but in cooperation, to work with civil societies to prevent and transform conflicts and violent extremism. A mobilisation against the great powers that plunder natural resources and impose partitions, deportations and ethnic cleansing. It is increasingly urgent to build a transversal Europeanist movement for peace and justice among peoples. That is why, from 16 March, we will be at the forefront of building a mobilisation against 'Rearm Europe'.

Un Ponte Per