For Episode 11 of The European Republic, our host Nikodem Skrobisz talks with Giacomo Leombruni — winner of the 2025 Charlemagne Youth Prize with Forum Europaeum and founder and president of Last Call Europe, a platform built by and for young Europeans who want to shape the continent through debate.

Giacomo argues that more Europe doesn’t mean less Italy. Giacomo makes the case that a stronger, more sovereign Union — especially on defence and foreign policy — isn’t a threat to national identity but the only way European nations can hold their own at a table now dominated by the US, China, and Russia. Along the way he gives a candid, ground-level read on Italian euroskepticism, the youth crisis quietly driving so much of it, and why he insists young people aren’t the future of European politics but its present.

In this episode we get into:

* The argument for a sovereign Europe — and why being “27 countries alone” is no longer an option

* The real roots of Italian euroskepticism: Brexit’s long shadow, Brussels-blaming, anxieties over the euro, and the populist habit of inventing a single enemy

* Youth unemployment, brain drain, and Europe’s drift toward a “gerontocracy”

* How Last Call Europe was built from scratch — and the vision to grow it into a pan-European media platform

* Activist or journalist? The line between shaping opinion and reporting it

* Why the cure for polarization is more debate, not less — including with people who hate the EU

* The future of NATO, the transatlantic relationship, and the case for European strategic autonomy

Check out Last Call Europe: ⁠

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