Opening Speech ECCAR President Benedetto Zacchiroli Steering Committee Botkyrka on the occasion of the ECCAR Steering Committee in Botkyrka from 6 - 7 May 2024
Good morning everyone,
Allow me, first of all, to thank the city of Botkyrka for its hospitality and for giving us the opportunity to once again enjoy the beauty of this city and this country. Thanks to its Mayor and to those who promoted the idea of meeting us once again here in Botkyrka. The last time was 2009, exactly 15 years ago.
I would also like to thank our office in Heidelberg, a close-knit and efficient team that makes it possible today also technologically, together with the technicians of this city, the fact that we also see each other online, that we have a dense and interesting agenda. Thanks especially to Jana who really spent every energy possible to make sure that our days were as effective as possible. The fact that we were here 15 years ago means a teo main things to me: we are a community, a glocal one.
1. We were not born yesterday. We have a history, and the city of Botkyrka is fully part of it. We know that cities have ups and downs in being active members of the coalition, this is normal. The fact that this city is once again being proactive is a good thing because, having known it for some time, I know how much is being done in this area to make the context in which the lives of individual citizens are lived in a high standards and equality. Equality that sees and studies the reality, grasps its diversity and makes it a sign of distinction and strength, not a sign of division and fear. Cities and their administrations have this, the equality of citizens, among their vital tasks, they are not only and exclusively distributors of services, but builders of community and coexistence. They are the workers who build the foundations of coexistence, who transform, day after day, a group of people, houses and streets not into an anonymous conglomerate of things and human beings, but into a community. Community. The word community derives from the Latin communitas, composed from cum and munus, where munus has a triple meaning that refers to a duty, a debt and a gift. The members of the community are united by a duty, a duty of recognition towards each other, where “the other” is seen as a gift and not an obstacle to their existence. That munus, that gift, is preceded by the particle cum, together. ECCAR and its cities strive in their daily lives to build themselves as communities of gift, aware that in the idea of "gift" there is that of recognition, mutuality, and the idea of being able to count on others.
2. We were not born yesterday. We have a history that in 2024 marks our 20th anniversary. If in December 20 years ago ECCAR was officially born with the approval of our Action plan, in the spring of that same year 2024, a group of cities met in the beautiful German city of Nuremberg and elected their first Steering Committee, then made up of twelve cities. I have a vivid memory of it because I was there, I was the young representative of a medium-sized Italian city that had recently, in its City Council, adopted the Chart of human rights in the city and that Italian city wanted to share that profound feeling of community with a larger community, the European one and not only that of the European Union but that of all the countries of the Council of Europe. It is also a sweet and pleasant memory of my youth, it takes me back to the dawn of my thirties when I was responsible for international policies in Bologna. That community decided not to stop at that larger community represented by the extension of the Council of Europe, but thanks to UNESCO, it decided to have, from the beginning, a global vision, understanding that the first gift of being human is to live together on the same planet. UNESCO, a formidable intuition, which is still a member of our community today, constantly reminds us how urgent it is not to look only at our small garden but at the entire world. We are a Glocal community, we act locally but thinking globally.
I stop here with the memories, also because we will celebrate our birthday next September at the General Conference in Heidelberg and we will have there all the time to give space to memories, not in a nostalgic sense but in a sense of pride for the path we have taken and push towards the future that we have waits together, as a community.
I'd say I've talked enough. The program of these two days is very intense and very interesting, so good work to everyone. Happy journey to all of us, because we learn more and more how to recognize ourselves as a community of mutual giving. Because the first to set an example must be us, who in ECCAR represent our city communities.
