From April 23-24, 2026 the VIII edition of the “Supranational Democracy Dialogue” took place in Brindisi bringing together political decision makers, scientists, and artists to discuss “Rethinking Democracy: Culture, Education, and Well-Being for Europe and the World” at the historic and inspiring “Convento di Santa Chiara“.
The conference started with an impressive photo exhibition about the founding of the “European Union” (EU) as we know it today. The candid images of the leaders and decision makers working behind the scenes on the design and structure of the EU captured one of history’s ambitious democratic developments in the making.
The conference was a genuinely distinctive experience of trans- and interdisciplinary speeches and discussions across all the scientific disciplines, integrating political decision makers, scientists, and artists in a truly unique way.
There were no agitative and programmatic hollow speeches, no scientific speeches detached from reality and society and no passive audiences.
Brindisi is the ancient terminus of the “Via Appia“, the ancient road that once connected the city to Rome. Thanks to Susanna Cafaro, the “University of Salento“, “Eumanity Demos” and many others who contributed to making this event a success. For the IDGR, the conference was a first step on a long road towards “Rome” — the actual foundation of a “Global Democratic Republic“.
The conference impressively showed that there are many paths to that destination. Everyone in the room was clearly united by a shared desire to travel to “Rome” to build the frameworks for a “Global Democratic Republic“.
The conference ended with strong collaborations forged and concrete agreements made to execute several concrete projects towards “Rome”. These projects advance our common mission — a “Global Democratic Republic” — as the best concept for a healthy and thus sustainable global society where we live together in peace, work collaboratively and creatively towards a prosperous future for humanity. Some of the collaborative projects agreed upon are:
- A test e-vote in support of our initiative towards a first official global vote on ‘climate action’ (global referendum).
- The development of a legal framework for such a global referendum.
- An “EU Horizon” project for the development of the new healthy global economy.
picture “the stairs to peace” shows the Roman column in Brindisi, which marks the ancient start/end of the “Via Appia“, one of the earliest and most important Roman roads of the ancient “Roman Republic“. It connected Rome with Brindisi.
