Posted on 10 February 2021
Simone Polidori, PhD candidate in Historical Sciences and Cultural Heritage at the University of Tuscia, spent one month on research stay at the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) as Vibeke Sørensen grant holder. His current research project is entitled “From the European Monetary System to the Maastricht Treaty: The Italian and Spanish left put to the test of European integration (1979-1992)”. In this interview, Simone Polidori tells us more about his project and research stay at the HAEU.
What is your research about?
My research aims to reconstruct the European path of the Italian and Spanish left over the period considered. There are two levels of observation that I intend to use to achieve this goal. A first level is certainly the cultural one, meaning by this the study of the very concept of Europe perpetrated by the parties and groups involved: what is meant by Europe, what are the aims of this Community, what are the functions to be delegated, how to communicate the virtues and contradictions of the European project to their electorate. The second field of observation is the institutional one. In essence, it is a question of verifying, starting from the cultural assumptions already identified, the effective follow-up that the members of the political families considered gave within the continental institutional headquarters, such as commissions and parliamentary groups. It goes without saying that when a prominent role is assigned to the cases of Italy and Spain, there is a need to consider the existence of two different perspectives. If for the Italian left one can in fact overlap the aforementioned cultural level with the institutional one for the entire chronological period considered, for the Spanish left, studying the path of European integration means first of all analysing the contribution of the socialists of the PSOE and the communists of the PCE in Spain's entry into the EEC. Until the signing of the accession treaty, on 12 June 1985 in Madrid, studying the European theme from the perspective of the Spanish left meant analysing the way in which anchoring to the Community was read in the broader theme of democratic transition.
How did you come up with this topic and why do you think it is relevant, socially and academically, to conduct such research?
Particular attention in my research activities has always been directed towards the issues of European integration and international communism. The PhD project represented an opportunity to integrate these two themes into a single research path.
First of all, I would like to clarify that I will try as much as possible to include the cases of Italy and Spain in the broader path taken by the "European left" in the period and in the issues considered. Consequently, I believe that the main utility of this work is to be able to study the way in which the components of the continental left have dealt with the path of European integration, analysing their contribution from time to time. The intent is also to verify the extent of this contribution, that is, to verify whether or not the "Europeanism" of the parties involved was up to the level of the actual integration project. It is legitimate not to expect a univocal answer, neither with regard to the two different families considered, the socialist and the communist, nor within the same families. Much more likely, there will be differences of thought and intent, unbreakable ties with different national affiliations. Consequently, the process of continental integration also acts as a privileged observatory to define the scope of the political proposals of the parties involved, considering their adequacy or otherwise with respect to that particular period.
What did you expect to find at the HAEU to conduct your research? To what extent does reality meet your expectations?
Clearly, the various documents preserved in the Historical Archives of the European Union play a prominent role in my research. These are sources necessary to cover the aforementioned institutional plan and to have the “internal” perspective of the integration process carried out especially in the 1980s.
How did you learn about the Vibeke Sørensen grant to conduct research at the HAEU and what do you think about this opportunity?
I used most of the time spent in the archives to get an idea as complete as possible of the available fonds. From this point of view, the opportunity provided by the Vibeke Sørensen grant was of particular importance. In fact, this experience helped me to choose the fonds to consult for my research, extending the traditional perimeter of the documentation concerning the European Parliament or the Commission, to the papers of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (EF), in addition to numerous private fonds of individuals. The balance is therefore certainly positive and the hope is to be able to return at the Archives in a more advanced stage of my project.
Simone Polidori will present the results of his research at the HAEU as Vibeke Sørensen grant holder at the next ADGRC seminar, on March 11, 2021, from 15:00 to 16:30, on Zoom.
Register to the upcoming seminar.