Il ruolo della diplomazia europea nello sviluppo cul-turale e nell’impegno umanitario

The actual inability of diplomacy to act in support of peoples and governments experiencing situations of hard conflict towards a peace outcome, compels us to wonder what is today the role of diplomacy, and to what extent it has changed, if so, with reference to the role performed by diplomacy for long time till the end of the Cold war. To answer to such question we have to examine the different nature of conflicts. Facing conflicts due mainly to ambitions of richness, power and prestige, inter-governmental actions employed diplomatic means of political-juridical, economic-commercial and strategic-military kind. New conflicts “de-structured” of mainly cultural origin (as consequence of the combined effect of globalisation and of the pro-independence awakenings of subcultures and local autonomous identities) require a diplomacy able to understand and to interact with the needs, the worries, the frustrations and aspirations of peoples, by analyzing the positions of the parts to clear them from criminal infiltrations.

The unified diplomatic corps of the EU (PESC-SEAE) could express a cultural auctoritas, be the bearer of what is called brand diplomacy; but the risks of an unique European diplomacy become high if, instead of enabling a cohesion of intentions, it exposes the common foreign policy to inconsistencies due to different mindsets between
the Mediterranean area and the continental one, between Scandinavian Countries and Eastern Mitteleuropa, and so on. In particular, it must be carefully avoided the cultural expansionism possibly presented as humanitarian intervention. The fundamental value of the dignity of the human being and a consistent vision is the new challenge that new generations have the right and the duty to takeover to grant peace in the world of tomorrow, studying opportune solutions to meet such challenge. Some proposals may address both international bodies (for example the International Court of Den Haag that could merge with the International Court of Justice of the United Nations; or the becoming local of NGOs, the presence of young people in international organisations) and diverse and more typically cultural aspects in order to create a common awareness of history and tragedies, and so a consequent ability to get mutual understanding.