The federalist intergroup of the Italian Parliament, which met today, expresses its firm dissent as regards the orientations emerged from the European extraordinary Council of Dublin and the subsequent meetings of the Council of Ministers.

Charged with the preparatory work for the inter-governmental conference on the political Union of the Community, the diplomatic corps of the Twelve - confirming the pessimistic forecasts of the parliamentary intergroup, which, together with the whole Parliament (see motion of the 15th of November 1989 and resolutions of the 21st of March 1990), proposed the constitution of a special committee headed by Jacques Delors - advanced worrying perspectives which, if they remained unmodified, can be summarized in the following way:

a) The European Parliament, seat of the delegation of the European people and centre of the federal and democratic European state to be constituted, is once more deprived of its fundamental prerogative: the legislative and politically-oriented one.

b) the executive commission, the engine of the unification process, is relegated to a progressively technical role, whereas its president, who until recently had been in favour of the federalist model and of the Spinelli project, accepted the fact of being disavowed and deprived of political authority;

c) The European Community must endure a further intrusion of the confederate model. Thus, under the deceptive guarantee of the joint and unanimous asset of the Council of Ministers, and owing to the effect of an elementary reaction toward the process of the German unification, the persistence of evident differences in the political status of the different countries, especially for that which concerns the defence policy and the control of the nuclear arsenal, which remain the monopoly of the British and French governments, are ratified and consolidated. Such differences deprive the European peoples of the innovative impulse contained in the perspective of the European federation, definitely place them in a state of inequality and of reciprocal blackmail, deprive them of the potentiality to collectively control their own destiny and security. A fact which appears even more serious considering the sincere support of the German government to the federalist and parliamentary perspective, and at a moment in which

the two superpowers, U.S. and USSR, are engaged in a policy of reduction and mutual control of armaments;

d) the European public opinion, having no previous parliamentary and political debates, is faced to a radical change in direction as regards the perspectives and guarantees ensured by the governments until that moment.

In such a context, the Italian diplomatic corps, light-heartedly dropping a political line pursued during the whole of the post-war period, committed a series of unacceptable political errors, especially harmful to the political credibility and the fundamental interests of the country:

a) it disregarded the indications of the electorate which had emerged during the referendum of the 18th of June 1989, which ensured a very strong majority to the attribution of the constituent mandate of the European Parliament;

b) disavowed, with a patent contradiction, the repeated orientations of the Italian Parliament as regards the constituent strategy, on which the government itself had declared itself favourable;

c) committed the unforgivable mistake of giving up as a matter of principle the federalist method and perspective, which, for its internal coherency and indisputable potential of ensuring equal political dignity to all the partners of the federation, seems to be the only one capable of definitively overcoming the disparities inherited from the war and of serving the legitimate interests of the majority of the states of the Community;

d) accepted a hasty definition of the goals of the inter-governmental conference on European political Union, which deprives the coming semester of Italian presidency of the Community of the most important contents and of that role of address which a large part of the European public opinion expected from our country;

e) pursued at the same time a policy of separate agreements and of "image" with countries of Eastern Europe, which could further isolate the country within the Community, relegating it to a sub-regional and individualist role.

In conclusion, not the possible acceptations of political compromises, but the disavowal of the leading principle which inspired the most enlightened Italian politicians in the whole post-war period, inevitably risks jeopardizing a heritage of coherence, inevitably pushing the country towards a policy of prestige and of national pique which has always brought Italy to its worst humiliations. The federalist method, according to the teachings of Altiero Spinelli, remains the only one capable of ensuring our country a positive political role, of ensuring it a specific credibility and function within Europe and of rescuing it, together with other partners, from the persistent punitive effects caused by the nationalist enterprise.

Only the apparent sacrifice involved in the unconditional acceptance of the superior ideal and institutional contents contained in the perspective of the European federation and by the elimination of the persistent selfishness of the old national states can serve the dignity of all the European countries and the fundamental interests of the Italian democracy.

The European federalist intergroup acknowledges with satisfaction that the European Parliament, in the resolution adopted on the 17th of May, repeated its request of constituting a federal type of European Union, and expressed its opposition to any unilateral strengthening of the role of the Council, which would diminish the powers of the European Parliament and of the Commission.

The federalist European intergroup, while renewing its dissent on the choices adopted by the diplomacies, reserves to adopt the necessary initiatives for the awakening of the parliamentary forces, of the political parties and of the public opinion as regards the current phase of the Community policy.

(*) The federalist intergroup includes members of parliament of all the political groups present in the Italian Parliament who are most concerned with the rapid construction of a federal and democratic Europe.