Manifesto of the European Federation of Saint James Way (Camino de Santiago) in support of the Camino Podolico route in Ukraine and the struggle of the Ukrainian people for their sovereignty, freedom, and democracy
The Camino de Santiago, Europe’s first cultural itinerary, is a network of more than 80,000 km of land routes crossing 29 European countries and 30,000 nautical miles of sea routes which have united the peoples of Europe for more than 1,200 years, promoted the exchange of knowledge, and consolidated a culture of harmony, understanding, and relationships among people who have helped generate the European civilizing process since the Middle Ages.
Today, the Camino de Santiago offers an experience open to universal knowledge and enjoyment for citizens from more than 180 nations who, year after year, travel the Camino de Santiago routes. The Camino de Santiago has endured all the vicissitudes of our continent’s history. It has undergone our wars and has allowed Europeans and citizens around the world to enjoy our periods of peace.
One of the routes included in the pilgrimage itineraries, Camino Podolico in Ukraine, is immersed in a war unwanted by the Ukrainian people and is suffering, like the rest of the country, the consequences of an unjustified and criminal aggression that violates the principles governing civilized relations between countries.
It is essential that the Federation that operates the Camino de Santiago before the Council of Europe—and that, precisely for this reason, defends a Europe based on the rule of law, democracy, respect for human rights, and the right to integral sovereignty of nations— takes a stand against the Russian Federation’s aggression against the people of Ukraine, their culture, heritage and institutions.
The Federation advocates for an end to Russian aggression against Ukraine, respect for its territorial sovereignty, and the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people to define their own future and their relations with other European nations.
A democratic Europe, respectful of human rights, a Europe that seeks relations of cooperation, free exchange, and respect for all the peoples that make up this continent, cannot tolerate this intolerable assault on our civilization, which takes us back to the darkest periods of contemporary history.
Our Federation cannot remain indifferent to this demand for a Europe at peace, whose countries embrace the principles that have guaranteed the most peaceful period in our common history.
We therefore wish to express our full solidarity with our Ukrainian colleagues in the European Federation of Saint James Way and place ourselves at their disposal to defend, within our sphere of action, the right of the people of Ukraine to define their future as a fully sovereign country, with territorial integrity and the freedom to decide the relations they wish to establish with the rest of Europe and the world.
At the moment, the Camino Podolico with the starting point in Vinnytsia (4625 km to Santiago de Compostela) is the most significant and important pilgrimage route, because its continued existence means that Europe continues to walk the paths of freedom, democracy, and respect for the men and women who build this continent every day.
On the 3rd of July, 2025, in Toulouse
Ildefonso de la Campa Montenegro
President of the European Federation of Saint James Way