{"id":467241,"date":"2026-10-07T18:16:55","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/10\/07\/addio-a-barbara-spinelli-giornalista-ed-ex-eurodeputata\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T18:40:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:40:00","slug":"farewell-to-barbara-spinelli-journalist-and-former-mep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/10\/07\/farewell-to-barbara-spinelli-journalist-and-former-mep\/","title":{"rendered":"Farewell to Barbara Spinelli, journalist and former MEP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The journalist, essayist and former MEP, Barbara Spinelli<\/strong>, has died at the age of 80. The announcement was made today (7 October) by her family, while Il Fatto Quotidiano<\/em>, for which Spinelli had been a contributor since 2016, reported the news. <\/p>\n

The daughter of one of the founders of European federalism, and author of the Ventotene Manifesto<\/a>, Altiero Spinelli<\/strong>, and of the German anti-fascist activist, Ursula Hirschmann<\/strong>, Spinelli became a professional journalist at the age of 28, beginning her career with the daily newspaper Il Globo. <\/em>In 1976, she helped found La Repubblica<\/em><\/strong>, alongside Eugenio Scalfari and other writers. <\/p>\n

In 2014, Spinelli was elected to the European Parliament on the “L\u2019Altra Europa con Tsipras” list, where she remained until 2019. <\/strong>The party represented a radical pro-European alternative inspired by the values of the Greek leader, Alexis Tsipras<\/strong>, 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. <\/p>\n

The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola<\/strong>, expressed her condolences on her social media channels, recalling<\/a> that \u201cfollowing in the footsteps of her father, Altiero Spinelli,\u201d the former MEP \u201cdedicated her career to reflecting on the future of the European project.\u201d Similarly, the Democratic Party\u2019s delegation to the European Parliament offered \u201cits heartfelt condolences to her family and to all those who loved her,\u201d emphasising that their former colleague had been \u201can authoritative and original voice in Italian and European culture and journalism.\u201d She did so by \u201cmaintaining a profound intellectual and civic commitment throughout her life, always keeping a close eye on the major issues of democracy, Europe, peace, and rights,\u201d the MEPs in the delegation reiterated. <\/p>\n

An example of Spinelli\u2019s civic commitment can be found in the essay <\/strong>“Ricordati che eri straniero” (Remember that you were a stranger<\/span><\/a><\/strong>)<\/span>, <\/em>in which the journalist denounces the European Union\u2019s 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 \u201cleaves a void in the worlds of culture, journalism, and European politics,\u201d the delegation of PD MEPs reiterated from Brussels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The former columnist for La Repubblica was elected to the European Parliament in 2014 on the \u2018L\u2019Altra Europa con Tsipras\u2019 list, where she remained until 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":467219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[36137,27427,26339,25755,36138],"class_list":["post-467241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-altiero-spinelli","tag-party-democratic-en","tag-eurocamera-en","tag-news-parliament-en","tag-manifesto-di-ventotene"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467242,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467241\/revisions\/467242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}