Grassroots European Solidarity - Italian Solidarity Movements in the Western Balkans in the 1990s and 2020s and Their Visions of Europe

In the 1990s civil society actors invoked international responses to halt the war, and in the 2020s they called for the EU to support the Western Balkans in the management of the increasing migration flows. [...] The questions focused on the reasons for engagement in solidarity movements, the values motivating it, the organisational forms and structure of the groups, and the respondents’ vision of Europe and of European solidarity. [...] 4 The Solidarity Movement during the Wars in the 1990s and the Hope in the European Integration Process During the conflicts in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, tens of thousands of Italian citizens participated in humanitarian missions in support of the pop- ulation affected by the war. [...] As the leader of one of the main Italian associations organising solidarity actions during the wars in the 1990s explains, back then the purpose of the peace movement “was also to fight for a united Europe”.3 One of the most famous initiatives of the anti-war movement was the peace march called “the European Peace Caravan”, organised in September 1991 by the 3 Interview with a representative of th. [...] Southeastern Europe 46 (2022) 248–270 260 milan and chiodi the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999, Langer’s idea of resolving the conflict through the European integration process found appeal to the extent that new conditions for the accession of the former Yugoslav countries were defined in the EU-Western Balkans summit of Thessaloniki in 2002.