On October 12, 2021, international experts and institutional representatives met at the Aula Polifunzionale of the Municipality of Ventotene to discuss projects on interreligious dialogue and sustainable development on the occasion of the event on Religious Communities, Dialogue, and Sustainability.
The Representation of the European Commission in Italy, together with Mediterranean Perspectives (MP) and Cooperica – both members of the Italian Network for the Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue (RIDE) – co-organized it (in cooperation with Mrs. Silvia Costa, Commissioner of the Italian Government for the redevelopment of the former Bourbon prison on the island of Santo Stefano in Ventotene), in the framework of the Third Edition of the annual Euro-Mediterranean inter-institutional initiative Ponza Prima-Med 2021. The initiative – which the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella awarded with a medal – promotes the historical, political and community values of the Pontine Archipelago, where 80 years ago Altiero Spinelli, confined in the Pontine Archipelago (Ponza 1937-1939, Ventotene 1939-1943), wrote his famous Manifesto for a Free and United Europe.
Experts and representatives from the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities, together with Israeli and Palestinian experts, discussed, with the active participation of Amb. Miguel Ángel Moratinos, High Representative of the United Nations Alliance for Civilizations (UNAOC, of which RIDE is the Focal Point in Italy), the Israeli-Palestinian Circular economy in Gaza initiative, and the conclusion of the “Re-Made in Gaza” project, which Cooperica drafted in cooperation with MP, as well as the book “The Bible of Ecology” with his author, Roberto Cavallo, president of Cooperica.
The event in Ventotene hosted also the XIII Israeli-Palestinian Seminar behind closed doors on the protection of religious sites, an outcome of the “Safeguarding religious sites: Israeli-Palestinian contributions for safe and peaceful worship” project, winner of the Italian Foreign Ministry’s call, concluded in Rome on June 7, 2021.