«Prima di fare il mondo bisogna fare l’Europa». Attualità e inattualità del progetto kantiano della pace perpetua

«Before doing the word we have to do Europe». Actuality and inactuality of the kantian project of perpetual peace · At the end of the Second World War an internationalist and cosmopolitan spirit spread, giving voice to the conviction that Europe could only be made if the world was made. It was in this context that Kant’s discourse was revived by the jurist Hans Kelsen who, even before the end of hostilities, developed a project for the institutionalisation of peace through law, which was largely embodied in the UN Charter. Despite the immediate criticism of this project by the jurist Carl Schmitt, at the end of the bipolar world, the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas reaffirmed the meaning of Kelsen’s project, identifying the European Union as a decisive step towards a world society governed by a constitution. Although current events seem to call into question the feasibility of this project, its relevance lies in the appeal to reason and dialogue that must take shape in the conviction that before succeeding in making the world, we should try to make Europe.