Professor Andrew Gamble and Dr Ania Skrzypek, FEPS Director for Research and Training, look at the challenges that democracies in the EU are facing, searching for answers on how to make the ideal persevere, the system reform and the individuals in societies reconnect. Examining the sense of isolation and need for togetherness in the COVID times, they suggest ways in which way progressives should reclaim the debate on state and empower citizens restoring credibility of deliberative processes.