Gianfranco Dell'Alba

ABSTRACT: Despite the favourable vote of Germany, the Treaty of European Political and Economic Union was "born dead, obsolete". The British, but also the Germans and the French, are developing "scenarios to adjust the Community institutions". This is the "Europe of small steps...which collapses miserably in the face of History". This result blatantly contradicts all expectations according to which 1992 and 1993 would have been decisive in launching the unity project. The Radicals "can proudly claim to have bitterly opposed" the Maastricht Treaty from the beginning. The next few months will thus be decisive for "the very existence of the Community". The lack of a real "ambitious project" in a "federal" sense, the mistakes of the European Commission are among the causes of the crisis, where only the enemies of Europe can "move their pieces". It is up to the Radical Party, therefore, to assume new responsibilities and, accepting Delor's provocative proposal, start organizing a "referendum alternative" for the

elections of next June. The radicals must organize "European federalist" lists to run in all countries while relaunching the unitarian project.

(1994 - IL QUOTIDIANO RADICALE, 8 November 1993)

The European elections of June 1994 are only a few months away. Germany is ratifying the Maastricht agreements and at month's end the Treaty of European Political and Economic Union will be accomplished. This summer's experience proved that this Treaty was born dead, obsolete in any case, with respect to the problems that have arisen in the meanwhile. The Community has proven incapable of addressing these problems, and it will be almost impossible for it to tackle them in the face of the slow but inevitable surge of renationalization and dilution of that little that had been achieved. It is a Treaty which its authors themselves are burying before it becomes effective. The British are asking Major to sponsor a brand new project of European Constitution. It is reported that it was drawn up by a group of "independent experts", but in actual fact it was developed by the Foreign Office, which intends to close the Community once and for all to the benefit of a vague area of intergovernmental cooperation. Germans a

nd French are also trying to take advantage of the shock produced by the failure of the monetary Union to stage scenarios for the adjustment of the "Community" institutions, first and foremost the Parliament and the Commission.

From the former Yugoslavia to the failure of the principle of the stability of the exchange rates and the mirage of a monetarist illusion without a common economic policy (which was supposed to be the turning point of the European construction) to that peace process in the Middle East in which all Europe participated thanks to...the Norwegian government. It is the Europe of small steps, of frustrated aspirations, of petty compromises and interests that collapses miserably in front of History, in front of the walls of division which seem to be growing higher and higher, without managing to propose a "political" solution.

All this comes at a time when, in the intentions of the masterminds of this Europe - starting from Jacques Delors and François Mitterrand - 1992 and 1993 were to be decisive for the "launch" of the United Europe. The Single Act and the single market of 1992, it has been said, would have enabled us to achieve a true Political and Economic Union. Instead 1993 is coming to an end and we have neither a Union nor a Market, at least not in the sense of an area with free circulation of individuals and wares. As to the capitals, we have seen that the less they circulate the better it is!

We radicals can proudly claim to have bitterly criticized the Maastricht Treaty from the very beginning. There were few others with the radicals that morning of December 1991 demonstrating in front of the gates of the European summit to try to avert the agreement which Major back in Britain dismissed with the slogan "we won the game and the match".

No ambitious project

What can be done in the face of this? The next few months will be decisive, in one direction or the other. This time what is at stake is not so much the democratic deficit of the European institutions - and therefore, for instance, whether to give power to Parliament - but the existence of the European Parliament, while with its modest powers. Not so much the greater or lesser degree of federalism to include in the community structure, but the very existence of the Community. In other words, the failure of Maastricht is also the failure of the theory that has so far underlay the fate of the Community: "let's share, sector by sector, starting from the economy, and the political integration will be inevitable". This has not been true so far. In fact, this type of model with no democratic counterweights and overly centralist has ultimately endorsed the thesis according to which only by giving back more and more competences to the national states can the democratic bases for a union be found.

It's the radicals' turn

at the coming elections

The lack of an ambitious and coherent project in a federal sense, and the mistakes committed by the European Commission are among the main causes for a situation where only the bitter enemies of the European construction can move their pieces, awaiting the two European summits of October and December to bring a final blow to the current model of the Community and to its embryo of federal structure to the advantage of a sort of "Holy Alliance" of the governments.

The "official" Europe is silent on all this: the Europeanists that issued judgments on Maastricht, the prestigious heads of State and government, the European Parliament itself, which witnesses the projects of its virtual dissolution.

It's time for the radical party to resume a strong, authoritative, transnational initiative to tackle the attempts to undermine the project and build a federal Europe, a United States of Europe according to the Spinelli (1) project.

The President of the EC Commission, Jacques Delors, who has a knack for launching fine projects, especially when their application, however small, is remote, has once again achieved one of his oratory miracles, disclosing the idea that those who advocate this policy and this need to claim a federal Europe, should unite beyond national frontiers until the next electoral campaign for the European Parliament, promoting and imposing this objective and this common goal.

This must truly happen: the electors must be offered an alternative in the shape almost of a referendum. The French and Danish referendums on Maastricht have shown that Europe divides the parties and the traditional national coalitions, the "right", the "left", the Greens, precisely because it is in itself a "strong" issue, a dimension of its own that needs to be addressed as such.

"European federalist" lists must be introduced in all countries to achieve this - on the future of Europe, on the representatives' projects - in order to open an electoral debate at a moment in which the demand for Europe is on the rise not only in Scandinavian countries and in Austria, but also in all countries of central and eastern Europe, for which the links to a democratic Europe could represent safety more than a probable authoritarian and nationalist involution. The projects that are in the air (for instance, Andreatta has suggested to propose a six or seven-member federal integration) must be relaunched. It is necessary to operate in order that the idea of a federation of peoples, of regions of Europe not be buried forever.

To that end we need to give strength to the radical party: together we can make it.

Translator's notes

(1) SPINELLI ALTIERO. ( Rome 1907 - 1982). Italian politician. During fascism, from 1929 to 1942, he was imprisoned as leader of the Italian Communist Youth. In 1942 co-author, with Ernesto Rossi, of the "Manifesto of Ventotene", which states that only a federal Europe can remove the return of fratricide wars in the European continent and give it back an international role. At the end of the war he founded, with Rossi, Eugenio Colorni and others, the European federalist Movement. After the crisis of the European Defence Community (1956), he became member of the European Commission, and followed the evolution of the Community structures. In 1979 he was elected member of the European Parliament on the ticket of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), becoming the directive mind in the realization of the draft treaty adopted by that parliament in 1984 and known as the "Spinelli Project".