Brussels – The journalist, essayist and former MEP, Barbara Spinelli, has died at the age of 80. The announcement was made today (7 October) by her family, while Il Fatto Quotidiano, for which Spinelli had been a contributor since 2016, reported the news.
The daughter of one of the founders of European federalism, and author of the Ventotene Manifesto, Altiero Spinelli, and of the German anti-fascist activist, Ursula Hirschmann, Spinelli became a professional journalist at the age of 28, beginning her career with the daily newspaper Il Globo. In 1976, she helped found La Repubblica, alongside Eugenio Scalfari and other writers.
In 2014, Spinelli was elected to the European Parliament on the “L’Altra Europa con Tsipras” list, where she remained until 2019. The party represented a radical pro-European alternative inspired by the values of the Greek leader, Alexis Tsipras, who was at the time a candidate for the presidency of the European Commission. In the European Parliament, she served as Vice-Chair of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and as a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, continuing her term as an independent from 2015 to 2019.
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, expressed her condolences on her social media channels, recalling that “following in the footsteps of her father, Altiero Spinelli,” the former MEP “dedicated her career to reflecting on the future of the European project.” Similarly, the Democratic Party’s delegation to the European Parliament offered “its heartfelt condolences to her family and to all those who loved her,” emphasising that their former colleague had been “an authoritative and original voice in Italian and European culture and journalism.” She did so by “maintaining a profound intellectual and civic commitment throughout her life, always keeping a close eye on the major issues of democracy, Europe, peace, and rights,” the MEPs in the delegation reiterated.
An example of Spinelli’s civic commitment can be found in the essay “Ricordati che eri straniero” (Remember that you were a stranger), in which the journalist denounces the European Union’s barriers to immigration and the lack of humanitarian solidarity. Furthermore, in 2013 she spearheaded major civil movements in defence of institutional legality and the Constitution. Her passing “leaves a void in the worlds of culture, journalism, and European politics,” the delegation of PD MEPs reiterated from Brussels.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
