ABSTRACT: Exhaustive excerpts of an article by Marco Pannella on "Il Corriere della Sera", published the day before the discussion of the Piccoli-Pannella resolution and of the text of the resolution itself, are hereby reported.

(For the United States of Europe, edited by Roberto Cicciomessere, Gianfranco Dall'Alba, Gianfranco Spadaccia - Supplement to Radical News n. 68 of the 5th of April 1988)

In spite of the vast adhesion of the parliamentarians to the resolution's text, the Italian Communist Party and some deputies of the Independent Left express reservations, while the press remains silent about the significance of the initiative. In order to contribute in overcoming reluctances and the wall of silence around the resolution, Marco Pannella writes an article on the "Corriere della Sera", of which we hereby report some excerpts:

"The cost of a "non-Europe" is already historically immense, and jeopardizes the future of the main part of the European, Mediterranean and African societies.

It is an unbearable cost for the entire world and for its perspectives: the world of political democracy, of the right to life and of the life of law cannot continue to be tributary and dependant from the sole American people and its institutions, at the cost of the death of common values.

Democracy is also a technology, a feature of the transformations and technical, social, historical and scientific revolutions.

It calls for markets and institutions that are adequate for the historical problems of the world, and requests that the apparently extravagant price of the respect of humanity and of all its members be paid. The "Romantic" myth of the national states has become a lethal abyss into which our century has been plunging for decades.

It is necessary for this awareness to immediately become political conscience and resolve, for it to become constituent of a "part", of a "party": perhaps this is occurring.

The parliamentary motion that will be voted the day after tomorrow, on the 10th of February, whose first signer is the President of the Foreign Commission, Flaminio Piccoli, already subscribed by almost two hundred and fifty parliamentarians, represents an essential step in the correct direction. Only the nature and the subculture of so much part of the fifth power, especially the audio-visual power, have been capable of ignoring and making others ignore everything about this initiative, which was promptly and firmly backed by the Foreign Minister, Andreotti, even before a "European summit" the possible themes and compromises of which seem to represent insurmountable obstacles to the construction, today, of the United States of Europe. (...)

(...) Perhaps the document's language, as much as its contents, proves its strength: the request of the "General States of the European peoples", with the election of the Presidents of the Council and of the Commission on the part of over six thousand parliamentarians of the twelve countries and of those of the European Parliament, in July 1989, provides our historical memory and our collective imaginary with that which Faure, in his message of support sent to the President Piccoli and the Chamber of Deputies, recalls: that over one hundred years ago Auguste Comte asserted the "European" feature of the 1789 Revolution, and in the scarce awareness of this, its limits and its relative failures.

Italian politics are sometimes richer and livelier than what is said and known about it, and risks dying because of this.

Let's hope this is not the case, at least not this time."

The resolution is unanimously approved in the final text, hereby reported, on the 10th of February 1988, with the only abstention of the deputy of the Italian Social Movement, Pino Rauti, and of the Christian Democrat deputy Malfatti:

This is the text of the resolution:

The III Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chamber of Deputies

recalling and underlining the contents of the agendas approved by the Senate of the Republic on the 1st of October 1986 (9.1751.3) and accepted by the Chamber of Deputies on the 17th of December 1986 (9/4029/1; 2; 3) on the occasion of the discussion of the draft bill for the ratification and the enforcement of the European Single Act, in which the government in particular was urged to support the proposal to entrust an explicit constituent mandate to the European Parliament to be elected in 1989;

recalling and underlining the positions several times assumed in support of the project of a treaty of the Union approved by the European Parliament on the 14th of February 1984, in particular with the resolution approved by the Chamber on the 14th of February 1984 (6-00018);

recalling that the thought and the work of Altiero Spinelli, and especially the conviction according to which "today there is no major problem concerning economy, currency, the solidarity-oriented connection of our development with that of the poorer countries of the world, defence, ecology, scientific and technological development, the universality of culture, that can still be seriously and exclusively faced with national criteria and instruments" have become a historical and political heritage of the majority of the political and social forces in the European countries;

recalling the cost of a "non-Europe" caused by the non-elimination of customs controls at intra-community borders, by the lacking harmonization of norms and standards, by the effects on the cost price due to the reduced dimensions of the national markets, to the duplication of control and supervision measures, to the duplication of research and investment programmes and to the needs to cover the risks in the case of transactions between the Community states and especially due to the lack of a Community institutional foreign affairs and defence policy;

recalling the existence of a "democratic deficit" in the Community institutions due to the transfer on a Community level of competences previously belonging to the national parliaments, which has not been matched by the attribution of concrete legislative and control powers to the European Parliament elected with universal suffrage;

underlining that while the economic and financial world have autonomously begun to enact forms of European integration, the Community institutions prove incapable of adjusting to the governments demands of the single market to be instated in 1992;

considering that, in spite of these premises, the crisis affecting the Community institutions and the paralysis of the process of political and economic integration of Europe could jeopardize the results achieved with difficulty in these last years;

considering, on the other hand, the immediate necessity for a democratic strengthening of the Community institutions and especially the urgency of resuming the process of revision of the treaties;

considering, moreover, the need for Europe to be able to speak officially, especially in the difficult international context, even with a single, authoritative voice;

underlining, finally, that while waiting for the definition on the part of the European Parliament, of a new, truly democratic institutional configuration, is its necessary and urgent that the elected members of the European Parliament and of the Parliaments of the twelve member states be charged, on a temporary basis, with the election of the presidents of the Council and of the Commission;

commits the Government

to operate in order for the European Council to adopt the following provisions for their execution, and ratifies on the part of the competent organs:

1. Conferring the European Parliament, to be elected with universal suffrage in June 1989, the task of updating, within the same year, the proposal of a new Treaty for the European Union, or the United States of Europe, already passed by the European Parliament.

2. Election of the President of the European Council, with the functions of co-president of the Council of Ministers of the European Communities, in July 1989, on the part of the European Parliament and of the elected members of the Parliament of the twelve member states, gathered in General States of the European peoples, under the presidency of the President of the European Parliament.

The President of the European Council will remain in office for three years, non extendible

3. Election of the President of the Commission on the part of the European Parliament and of the elected members of the twelve member states, gathered in General States of the European peoples, under the presidency of the President of the European Parliament.

The Commission formed by the latter will need to obtain the confidence on its programme on the part of the European Parliament, and will remain in office for three years.

4. Investigation of the possibility of symbolically involving in the two elections the members of the Assembly of the Council of Europe of extra-EEC States that request to.

5. Tendential destination of 2% of the national defence budgets of the twelve member states as from 1990, for a community action aimed at the promotion and defence of civil and human rights in Europe and in the rest of the world, provided by the "III basket" of the Helsiniki negotiations.