VENTOTENE: The leaders of Italy, France and Germany paid their respects on Monday at the tomb of one of the founding fathers of European unity in a symbolic bid to relaunch the European project following Britain’s decision to leave the EU.

Standing silently together, Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Holland placed three bouquets of blue and yellow flowers — the colours of the European Union — on the simple white marble tombstone of Altiero Spinelli in the cemetery on the island of Ventotene.

Spinelli, along with another intellectual confined to Ventotene in the 1940s by Italy’s fascist rulers, co-wrote the “Ventotene Manifesto” calling for a federation of European states to counter the nationalism that had led Europe to war. The document is considered the inspiration for European federalism. Renzi invited his French and German counterparts to Ventotene to remind Europe of its founding ideals as the EU forges ahead after Britain’s vote to leave.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2016