12F, stories of an “everyday and diverse” Europe. Co-creator Max Costa speaks

Rome. A brief European story that looks beyond Europe as we experience it today: not the Europe of nationalism, of the ‘black wave’, of frightened and sometimes entrenched institutions, of treaties in need of rewriting, but the Europe of people with their ideas and their lives seen ‘from below’, yet in a ‘lofty’ sense. In short, what does it mean, in everyday life, to be truly European today? And what can illustrate this vividly through words and images – and perhaps with a headline (specifically, the headline ‘Fuck it, I’m European’)? The newly launched biannual magazine 12 F (12 F.eu) sets itself precisely this aim: to explain Europe through real-life examples: ‘from a table in a trattoria, from a market, from the coffee that changes every hundred kilometres yet remains our own’, says co-founder Massimiliano Costa, who, together with German entrepreneur Sebastian Stricker (who, like Costa, has long been active internationally in setting up various start-ups that combine technology and social initiatives), has decided to launch this lifeboat in the midst of the pitch-black sea of a threatened Europe. To illustrate from within, and indeed from the grassroots (from a garden, a business, a harbour), what ‘unity in diversity’ means. The aim is not didactic: “We want to offer people a mirror in which they can recognise themselves,” says Costa. The magazine’s inaugural issue was published over the summer; the next one will arrive at the start of the year. Costa is no expert on European institutions. He has always had a keen interest in international relations, he explains, but he did not study to become a champion of this ‘everyday’ Europe. On the contrary: the entrepreneur has a unique ‘grassroots’ European story that speaks for itself: he holds a diploma in violin and undertook very ‘local’ studies at the University of Turin, before specialising at Columbia and embarking on a career as a consultant at BCG and then, from 2015 to 2021, as co-founder and leader of ‘Share the Meal’, an app by the United Nations World Food Programme, which by 2020 had reached $25 million in annual revenue. This is why he won the “Apple Best of” award, presented by Tim Cook himself. His professional partnership with Stricker (who had worked with the United Nations and therefore had inside knowledge of the potential of app-based fundraising) dates back to that time. The next idea was aimed squarely at Palermo, a hub in the Mediterranean where, as Costa puts it, “young people are in greater need of technological training than in northern cities”. No sooner said than done, in the sense of the project’s rapid implementation: Costa founded Develhope in Palermo, a digital training school where students initially paid only after finding work and which is now sponsored and supported externally by other entrepreneurs. The aim: to do something small but powerful to “reduce the north-south divide and youth unemployment, and put a stop to the brain drain”, says Costa. The magazine 12F forms part of the creative journey of two young men (Costa and Stricker), who have experienced the inspirational influence of Europe first-hand. The aim is for the magazine to give a voice to a ‘pop’ Europe, present ‘in the cafés of Lisbon as well as in the Sicilian countryside or in the Croatian town where Cold War murals still survive, or in a cooperative football club in Hamburg’. In 12F, ‘the stories of a Europe that is not afraid of complexity’ are ‘uncovered and told’. ‘What is our plural identity made of? That is the underlying question.’ Could this also be a way, in our own small way, of stemming the tide of surging populism?