ABSTRACT: The Radical Party should take strength from its Eastern and Western European members and implement an important federalist action in Parliaments, and amongst society, in the EC countries, to encourage the formation of new communities which are not exclusively European.

(THE NEW PARTY, MARCH 1993)

A radical change has to take place in society before we can cope with the crisis that besets democracy and world order. We must begin with the individual, and the first natural, spontaneous and historical groupings, to arrive, via the various levels of organized society - neighbourhoods, cities, regional, national and supranational communities - at a world level.

The liberty and autonomy of institutions must be recognized at every level, in order for them to be able to carry out their relative functions and tasks. These institutions, however, must be coordinated from the bottom up, that is, according to the fundamental principle of subsidiarity, which not only provides for institutions capable of guaranteeing maximum efficiency and democracy at every level, but also for intervention on the part of the central institution solely when the action it takes will be more effective than that undertaken by the subordinate institutions singly.

This system, in which the role played by democratic institutions - legislative, executive and judiciary bodies elected by the people - is evident, is neither abstruse nor political science fiction. It is the correct realization of a true federal system as applied at a supranational level, as it is in the US, when a number of States decide to unite of their own free will, delegating various functions and tasks to the federal institutions - foreign and defence policy, commercial policy, monetary and economic policy - leaving the individual States belonging to the Federation to carry out all the other functions and tasks, with their power remaining sovereign; and within each State, for example in Germany, where the three functions mentioned above are assigned to the central government, with the subordinate institutions - the Laender - being responsible for the others.

The federal system can naturally be improved upon and, given the fact that many international problems are interdependent, assign to its institutions the task of at least providing for policies regarding the environment, scientific research and sources of energy, to flank the foreign, commercial and monetary policies.

However, it is still the only viable political and legal system that goes beyond frontiers - often determined arbitrarily -between and within countries themselves, and permits the creation of a new democratic society and a new world order, culminating in a world government.

We must therefore immediately launch a top priority campaign for the realization of a federalist system: one of the main projects and strengths of the transnational Radical Party. If it is not going to remain a mere dream, we must build on a structure that already exists: the European Community. Although the EC institutions are weak, full of contradictions, and incapable of formulating a democratic policy, either at a political or economic level, towards its members and, above all, non-members, the Community is the only one in existence which could swiftly develop into a Federation, and then into a United States of Europe.

In order to achieve this the EC must not only strengthen its institutions but also exclude those countries (like the UK and Denmark) who are no longer prepared to continue along the path to unity; and welcome those other countries which uphold federalist principles and acknowledge the rights and duties that they imply. If the Community is not strengthened by a federal system, the much longed for opening up to other countries - above all those which have recently gained their freedom - will not only be pointless, but possibly dangerous. The European Community is not a powerful democratic force as it is bound hand and foot by intergovernmental logic and diplomatic thinking. For this reason, it is incapable of playing a positive role in the terrible conflicts that are now underway, or offering any form of guarantee to religious, political and ethnic groups.