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In these pages I will present the results of a project, launched in 2008 by the European Union, the subject of which were the values of Europe. The idea of a Europe built on knowledge, civility, rule of law, inclusiveness, was in our mind, but we understood that this idea of Europe was conflicting with many other ideas about Europe and its destiny. At the end of our search, we have found that the best Europe is the Europe of the Founding Fathers. In 1946, Winston Churchill advocated European integration precisely to prevent the horrors of two world wars from ever happening again. From the beginning, the EU was linked to the USA. European heritage and American heritage are strictly connected. Many scholars, such as and T.G. Ash and J.G.A. Pocock, underline the point. The rebirth of classical Europe is the rebirth of collaboration, alliance, partnership, mutual friendship, common values. Western declinism is the classic self‑fulfilling prophecy, while, actually, however, what continue to exist are reasons for US strength and European eminence, which can be maximized rather than minimized (for those who care about the stability of the international system). The inventor of dynamite and philanthropist, Alfred Nobel is an icon of European ambivalence on science, which can be used in order to build bombs and in order to build peace. At the annual Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, in the Stockholm City Hall, every 10th December, the classical European spirit is alive and kicking even more each year.

The article proposes a critical approach to the notion of interculturality in the context of the geopolitical and social transformations that marked the transition from the nation-state system to the birth of a common European identity.In the European society the demarginalisation of territorial and identification borders raises the question of cultural differences and the need to redefine the new criteria for social inclusion. In this perspective, the process of European integration finds its own testing ground in social policies designed to cultural minority. The article focuses precisely on the case of Gypsy communities, exploring the symbolic and political mechanisms that have historically compromised public image of Gypsies through the 'nomad theory' by considering nomadism as part of an inherent identity. The reproduction of this stereotype is at the basis of a social stigma of Gypsy groups, perceived as a public order problem that is reflected in national and supranational politics according to the tendency to consider Gypsies as incapable of decision making and not interlocutors on issues such as health, education and housing. In this text, the author aims to examine these aspects of social exclusion of Gypsy communities and the fault lines of their Europeanisation process, emphasizing their deep roots in the historical and social structure of Europe and their political migration as a creative adaptation strategy to the historical-economic conjunctures. In this framework of reference, interculturality becomes an analytical and political tool that is capable of overcoming the conflicts between the majority society and minorities and a project able to oppose to the ideologies of difference that transform the cultures into abstract and incommunicable entities.El artículo propone un acercamiento crítico a la noción de interculturalidad en el cuadro de las transformaciones sociales y geopolíticas que han caracterizado el paso del sistema estado-nación al nacimiento de una identidad comunitaria europea. En la actual sociedad europea la desmarginalización de los confines identitarios y territoriales se eleva la cuestión de las diferencias culturales y la necesidad de redefinir nuevos criterios de inclusión social. En esta perspectiva el proceso de integración europea encuentra uno de sus bancos de prueba en las políticas sociales dirigidas a aquellas comunidades consideradas minorías culturales. El artículo se centra en particular en el caso de las comunidades gitanas, examinando los mecanismos simbólicos y políticos que han determinado históricamente una representación negativa suya por la teoría de un nomadismo consustancial a la identidad gitana. La reproducción de este estereotipo es la base de un estigma social de los gitanos, percibidos como un problema de orden público y se refleja en las políticas nacionales y supranacionales que continúan sin considerarlos interlocutores activos en la elección de estrategias pertenecientes a la esfera de la salud, de la educación y de la vivienda. En el texto se discuten estos aspectos unidos a la exclusión social de los gitanos y los puntos débiles de su integración europea, subrayando su pertenencia histórica a Europa y valorando su política migratoria como expresión de una modalidad creativa de adaptación a las coyunturas histórico-económicas. En este marco de referencia, la interculturalidad se convierte en un instrumento analítico y político capaz de superar los conflictos entre sociedad mayoritaria y 'minoría cultural' y a su vez en un proyecto capaz de oponerse a aquellas ideologías de la diferencia que transforman las culturas en entidades abstractas e incomunicables.