September songs and island dreams

As September breaks and the dreaded back-to-school type feeling descends, something which afflicts the British and possibly the Anglo-Saxon world in a particular way, thoughts turn to times not-so-long past when early September found this particular correspondent-blogger in the Mediterranean, on an island off the coast of Italy to be more precise and on Ventotene to be even more accurate.....

If the discerning traveller was to take a train from Rome southwards they would eventually arrive at the coastal town of Formia. If the same traveller was so inclined, he or she could take a boat ferry or hydrofoil (a sort of cross between a hovercraft and a jet-propelled passenger boat) to the island of Venotene. Not as well known or as glamorous by reputation as Capri, although the island made famous to postwar Britons by Gracie Fields is not far away across the water, it is where a certain Altiero Spinelli was exiled by Mussolinni's fascist regime during the Second World War. Altiero Spinelli is honoured by the Italian federalist movement as its founding father and also as a pioneering thinker-politician behind the development of the European Communities. Spinelli's work influenced the architects and guiding spirits of those who built the institutions that were to grow into the European Union. Whilst imprisoned on the island he wrote the Venotote Manifesto which promoted the idea of a federal Europe and developed the federalist political philosophy. There is an institute - the Spinelli Institute - which exists to further his work and every year holds a conference on federalism to discuss, debate and celebrate his achievements.

The international young Europeans known as Jef, send members to participate in these conferences and the week-long seminars which form a part of the ongoing work of this international organisation. It is a conference like no other: a mixture of lectures and workshops, beach afternoons and the sublime food and drink that Italy offers in her unique way. Evenings are spent carousing under the stars and weighty matters debated and such as the committe membership of the European Parliament and the extension of qualified marjority voting in EU decision-making. There is also a lot of music to go with the wine...