We have drafted a proposal: can the European Commission protect Autistici/Inventati from the effects of the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration? We have spoken with lawyers, involved several Members of Parliament, and we know that there is a legal avenue to protect European citizens, organisations and banks from the extraterritorial effects of these sanctions. But legal instruments need to be matched by the political force required to use them.
Banca Etica, by contrast, continues to argue that fighting to make this happen is not its responsibility and that its priority is simply to protect itself. Ilaria Salis and Benedetta Scuderi are already taking action in the European Parliament, but the road will be long. I firmly believe that this is not the time to remain indifferent.
In a September in which far-right forces continue to advance in Germany, and in which the United States is placing people and organisations committed to antifascism and the defence of rights on a blacklist, despite there being no judicial conviction against them in Italy or the European Union, the response cannot be: let it go, better not to raise our heads too much.
The fear of speaking out, remaining silent in order not to be the next target, choosing to look away from what is happening: these are precisely the behaviours that risk dragging us all into the abyss.
International judges, Francesca Albanese, Autistici/Inventati: the list keeps growing and, despite this, no Europe-wide public campaign capable of confronting politically what is happening has yet emerged. Do we really have to wait until that list grows even longer before doing something?
Read this article, understand carefully what has happened, and let us start discussing together how to build a public campaign at European level.
For me, there are three central political issues at stake.
1. Communication and digital autonomy.
The Trump administration and part of Silicon Valley are converging towards a model in which communication, privacy and freedom of expression increasingly depend on a small number of private and state-controlled infrastructures. Those who build autonomous tools outside this monopoly risk being criminalised or excluded from essential services. This process progressively calls into question one of the fundamental pillars of liberal democracy: the ability to communicate, organise and express ourselves without being entirely dependent on infrastructures controlled by a handful of actors.
2. Antifascism and European political autonomy.
Europe, whose post-war democratic order is founded on the rejection of the Nazi-fascist project, is now facing transnational authoritarian pressure that tends to criminalise institutions, organisations and movements committed to defending antifascism and fundamental rights. The issue therefore concerns much more than Autistici/Inventati: it concerns Europe’s political autonomy and its ability to defend the democratic principles on which it claims to be founded.
3. European financial autonomy.
The A/I case shows just how fragile this autonomy currently is. A decision taken by the Trump administration can have immediate consequences in Europe: an entity that is not sanctioned by the European Union can lose access to its bank account because European intermediaries fear the consequences of US sanctions, exclusion from international payment networks, or difficulties in carrying out transactions in US dollars.
The question is very simple: is it acceptable that the rules effectively governing the European market are, in practice, determined by a US blacklist? Is it possible that Europe lacks both the negotiating power and its own European payment-card infrastructure to prevent this from happening?
Political autonomy, digital autonomy and financial autonomy are, in this case, part of the same struggle.
This is an introduction to a longer proposal. Read the full text in here in Italian, or here in English.