I had dinner with Hans and Hanneke; a proper continental one with good food, wine and many personal questions, some embarrassing.

After one of my usual sweeping statements, Hanneke stopped me to clarify: “What do you mean that you don’t care about being happy?”

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The Commission is under attack by all NGOs and charities. Europe 2020, the new economic strategy which follows the Lisbon Strategy, has forgotten the central piece of the puzzle: people. I guess nobody in the Commission has ever heard about the Matrix or the Gospel.

In the Matrix, computers have taken control of society and harvest people’s brain power as fuel.

In the Gospel the main character dies on the cross to liberate the power of love. He wasn’t an hippy ante litteram. Love is a metaphor for the people’s power beyond material means.

While the first one is a cult movie, one sixth of humanity still buy into the messages of the second one.

Do you share my view that the guys (and girls) in Brussels might have missed something in their strategy?

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Last week I was cc in an email chain that started in my home town Bologna and propagated across the country. Some of my relatives were involved as well. It’s not the first time but it was the same topic: WE ARE UNDER THREAT.

The murder of 16 a year old Turkish girl buried alive by her family because she hung out with male fellows. The Italian nation is threatened because dominant postmodern liberalism (the Pope would call it relativism) is weak in front of the advance of Islam infiltrating through immigrants and concessions of liberal institutions such as the European Union made to uncivilized nations.

The email launched an appeal to save Italian values, to save Europe from its own weaknesses. My uncle, involved in the group, called for a new Crusade against Islam as the cradle of evil.

What would be your reaction if you received such a message? Do you feel under threat?

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My grandfather said ‘every month you must go to Rome if you want to get what you need for your hometown’.  He was a top civil servant in my hometown Bologna. It was the 30s and Mussolini ruled in Italy.

My grandfather wasn’t a fascist but he obeyed (he said). So he went to Rome in the same way that I regularly go to Brussels. This is not just a habit in my family. Have you ever seen the TV show Rome? So you know since the Roman Empire there have been clientes.

At the time they woke up early in the morning to go to the house of dominus asking for favors and receiving obolo, the daily bread. At least once a month I wake up at dawn to catch up the Eurostar and go to Brussels for meetings with European officials and MEPs.

However, there are many other civil society leaders who don’t travel as much but settle down in the capital and live close to power. Have you ever heard about Brussels civil society?

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