I'll never leave a hug to give

The unimaginable happened. Suddenly everything changed and nothing seems to stay the way it was. We are indeed living a unique moment in our lives and one has to be resilient to react and to rise again.

I don't know what I miss most. Selfishly, we feel like we're missing everything. Freedom, goods, services, mobility, friendship, affection, hugs, finally, the list is endless. We had everything and we didn't know it. We have to learn from this challenge.

In just over four decades of life, I had never experienced anything like it.

This is really being a different "war". As a Portuguese poet said, "this is a war where the hugs are the weapons", referring to the fact that we cannot touch each other so as not to contaminate the next. Sad irony when a manifestation of affection can literally kill us.

In 1755 there was a great earthquake in the city of Lisbon that almost destroyed it completely. The phrase of the then Minister of the Kingdom, Marquis de Pombal, was famous: "we must bury the dead and care for the living". This statement, revealing too much coldness for today's standards, in fact leads us to think that we must move on with our lives and face with courage, even if the moment despairs us, this challenge to which we feel we have contributed nothing.

But it is of reaction that I want to speak to you now. After two months of struggle and confinement, after weeks of uncertainty and pain, we now have a period to take care of the living' and try to rebuild society, the economy, Europe, the world.

And on that basis, let us learn the right lessons and start again.

Many will think as I do: I will never leave a hug to give; I will never miss the opportunity to tell someone how much I miss him/her. I will never try to disappoint anyone again. All good intentions, good to see.

And more practical things? No one was and will be prepared for something like this. And how to fix what happened? How to recover the society and the economy that sustains it?

Questions that need to be answered quickly by everyone and on the basis of European principles of solidarity.

In fact, if we think about what we have been deprived of, we think about the European single market. In my opinion, the comparison makes sense: suddenly we are left without a network', without life. We have been deprived of freedom, of the movement of goods, services and people, we have all been confined to our area. Nobody liked it.

That is also why I am a convinced European. The single market brings us freedom, growth, movement, solidarity. Let us not let the pandemic deprive us of a better future. Let us advocate a free, solidarity-based Europe in freedom. And let us move together towards a better future, hugging those we love most and caring for others.