DESPITE THE FACT THAT WE ARE TOO FEW

Dear friends,

A letter by the Radical members of the European Parliament has been sent out from Brussels to all the members of the national parliaments. This means over 6.600 letters in the nine languages adopted by the European Community. It is a letter which contains a proposal: that the national Parliaments subordinate the ratification of the new treaties of economic, monetary and political union of the European Community to the prior agreement of such treaties on the part of the European Parliament.

In other words, the problem is to prevent the process of European integration from remaining, once more, the monopoly of the national governments and chanceries, to the detriment of the European Parliament, which is the only institution which represents European citizens, and therefore to the detriment of democracy and of citizens' rights.

In this issue of the Radical Letter, you will find the text of the letter drafted by the Radical members of the European Parliament, the resolutions which have already been passed by the Italian and European Parliament as well as those that have already been submitted to the Belgian Parliament. In the next issues of the Radical Letter we shall not fail to inform you on the outcome of such initiative.

In Rome, in the federal headquarters of the Radical Party, we are giving the final touch to the project we talked to you about some time ago; to send all the members of the national Parliaments and of the Republican and regional Assemblies of Europe a newsletter on the Radical Party and on the transnational and transpartisan initiatives the Party intends to propose to tackle some of the most urgent problems of our time. The newsletter shall be translated into fourteen languages, and addressed to dozens of thousands of European citizens as well as to the 40.000 institutional representatives.

Things seem to be moving therefore, even if to a lesser degree as far as the number of members is concerned. Apart from the fresh arrival of a group of about 50 members from Burkina Faso, the global trend is extremely modest: slightly over 3.000 members throughout the world. Very little, if we consider that the minimal estimated target for our project is 50.000 members.

We are asking you to risk with us, to invest in this political instrument of the future, which is so ahead of its time as to seem useless, crazy or simply...out of its time.