Diplomacy: past, present and future and the Helsinki Pact

ORGANIZER: Società Dante Alighieri Locarno

Muralto. Palazzo dei Congressi.

Thursday, 23 October 2025, 6:00 pm.

Admission: free.

Recommended age: 14 and up.

• Dante Alighieri Society Locarno website

What happened in Locarno 100 years ago offers us a valuable lesson. It was not merely about Franco-German reconciliation, but about a broader post-war accommodation across the continent - a transformation from bilateral to multilateral diplomacy and a reshaping of the entire system of continental relations. This marked the beginning of an era of liberal internationalism, favoring collaboration over antagonism.

The so-called Spirit of Locarno was invoked to mend a fractured Europe and to strengthen the authority of the League of Nations. However, this proved to be a short-lived illusion, due both to the failure of those responsible for upholding it and to the later defeats of Nazism and, more recently, the collapse of the Berlin Wall. A new foundation seemed to be laid with the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, which established a behavioral code of conduct based on political, rather than legally binding, commitments - an achievement to which Swiss diplomacy contributed significantly.

What is happening in Ukraine again urges the European conscience.

Guido Lenzi
As Italian Ambassador, he served his diplomatic career from 1964 to 2007, with postings in Algiers, Lausanne, London, Moscow, the United Nations in New York, and as Permanent Representative to the OSCE in Vienna. He has held key positions such as Director of the European Institute for Security Studies in Paris, Deputy Chief of Cabinet to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Diplomatic Advisor to the Ministers of Defense and Interior. He has also taught at the University of the Aosta Valley and published numerous articles in international relations journals. He is the author of Liberal Internationalism: Actors and Scenarios in the Global World (Rubbettino, 2014) and Diplomacy: Past, Present and Future (Rubbettino, 2020).

Supported by Fondazione Magna Charta and Fondazione cultura nel locarnese.