Economia circolare e Unione europea: percorsi e sfide verso un’Europa unita

Since 2015, the European Union (EU) has launched an Action Plan for the circular economy with the aim of promoting the transition to a sustainable economy. In March 2019 a report by the European Commission led by Jean-Claude Juncker drew up a balance of the Action Plan, thus reaching an initial evaluation and in the following December the European Commission chaired by Ursula von der Leyen presented the Green European New Deal, a strategy to “improve people's wellbeing” and make the EU climate neutral (zero emissions) by 2050, approved in January 2020 by the European Parliament (EP). Many are the paths taken and the unknowns as well, in addition to the inconsistencies of the EU and especially of its member countries; in this regard, it is all the more necessary to resume the construction of a Europe as a democratic federation in order to make the EU's own action and all the actors involved in this epochal challenge (States, local authorities, economic-financial world, organizations social, citizens). In fact, the circular economy is part of an eco-sustainable future project that transversally affects all the world society and through which Europe can regenerate itself as a civil power, restructuring itself as an ecological federation at the service of peace, well-being and care for common home. By implementing the vision of integral ecology of the encyclical "Laudato si", also released in 2015, recovering the value of human ecology and rejecting the culture of waste (with many ethical, social, cultural, economic, political ramifications), the circular economy can constitute a fundamental step towards a society of coexistence and inclusion, the result of environmental education and ecological conversion and to achieve the objectives of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.