by Adelaide Aglietta and Gianfranco Dell'Alba

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Adelaide Aglietta, Radical Party member of twenty years standing, party secretary in 1977, several times deputy in the Italian parliament, is currently a co-chairperson of the Green Group at the European Parliament.

Gianfranco Dell'Alba, member of the Federal Council of the Radical Party, is currently General Secretary of the Green Group at the European Parliament.

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The "Treaty on European Union" was signed at Maastricht on February 7, the result of two years of work and negotiations between the twelve governments of the European Community. In consequence, the passage of the various ratifications through national assemblies is now underway, and in some countries there will be a popular referendum on the subject. The European Parliament, for its part, will in April express its opinion on the contents of the agreement reached by the heads of state and government.

Media impact, skilfully orchestrated by governments

The impact in the media, skilfully directed and orchestrated by governments, has already been and will continue to be a decisive factor in the choice of parliaments, a choice that already seems to be taken for granted and which will brand as anti-European those individuals and political forces who hold negative views of the results of the two conferences.

A case for non-ratification of Maastricht

We wish to make a number of considerations which in our view could be used to support the option of non-ratification, an option that would open the way to an EC crisis, and would herald the immediate convening of an intergovernmental body able to provide the answers that Maastricht could not give, as demonstrated by the desire expressed at Maastricht to hold a new conference in 1996. This option would also certainly bring forward the deadlines and exacerbate the contradictions for those who truly believe in a federal future, even if reached one step at a time, and those who shamelessly bluff behind the constant postponement of the real political decisions. u2e.

A further increase in the lack of democracy

Before coming to the two central questions which we must answer in order to better assess the results of Maastricht, we would like to recall the most serious limitations of the new treaty: the shattering of the unitary dimension of the European concept, the overlapping of the roles and functions of the different institutions, a consequent multiplication of decision-making procedures and therefore incoherent choices, ambiguity in the acquisition of new responsibilities still mainly limited to intergovernmental co-operation, a consequent and further increase in the lack of democracy, not only in terms of the power and responsibility not conceded to the European Parliament, but also in terms of the authority removed from national parliaments.

The two questions:

1) are we still moving towards a democratic federation of states and regions, or is there a different goal?

2) if there is a different goal, what are the implications for the process of Community integration and for the process of widening the Community?

We believe that what occurred at Maastricht was a very marked swing towards an intergovernmental interpretation of European politics. We believe that this swing is not only thoroughly inadequate to provide effective supernational results within the deadlines set by the challenges we face in this age, in our continent and in the world - it is also a dangerous precedent of national interests taking priority over the original plan, and consequently the start of a period in which the Community is subject to breaking up.

Beyond assertions of principle and of the positive things that are contained within the Maastricht treaty, it seems to us that the prevailing tone is that of a change of course with respect to the plan that until now has directed the process of European integration, which drew its strength from the willingness of states to give up portions of sovereignty in full respect of the principle of complementarity and following a unitary institutional approach.

Conservation of national powers

We do not believe that all of this is the result of a desire u2e. to replace the original plan with a confederal outline for Europe; it is the consequence of the prevailing tendency within states to maintain their own powers, their own interests, their own alliances and their own characteristics, to attach more importance to these ends than to a truly common and Community approach to Europe.

Within this context, the lack of a significant move forwards towards the transformation of Europe into a real European political union is not only a setback in the process of integration, and not only a serious reversal for democracy in the Community: it is a substantial, formal sign of the impossibility of beginning a process of widening the Community to take in the countries that have asked to join. In other words, Maastricht provides a negative response to those countries who are looking to Europe to further their hopes of making progress and not being left on the sidelines in a situation of dependency, or at least on the margin, with respect to the intergovernmental evolution of the present Community.

Maastricht: potentially destabilizing for the whole of Europe

Without doubt this is the most serious consequence of Maastricht, whose potential for destabilizing the whole of Europe cannot be ignored.

This is why we believe that to avoid the outbreak of new European crises there is an urgent need to reassert the will to proceed quickly towards a real constitution which will definitively sanction not only the vocation, but the federal and democratic reality of Europe. This is the necessary condition for a Union of European peoples open to those countries which, without the European home within which they may put an end to their borders and their heritage of national, ethnic and religious conflict, will be pushed increasingly towards fratricidal wars that may not spare the countries of the present-day Community.

In this, the Italian government is very much at fault: "morally" bound by the results of the 1988 referendum for the attribution of those very constituent powers to the European Parliament, it has sided with the forces that are most hostile to the evolution of the Community in a federal direction. This is thanks to the lead given by De Michelis, weakly opposed by Prime Minister Andreotti, in complete contrast to the line that was firmly held until just a few years ago.

The elaboration of a project for a Constitution

Certainly, it would be possible to envisage reaching a hypocritical endorsement to Maastricht, a solemn commitment by governments for the European Parliament to draw up a project for a Constitution to be debated in 1996, when the matters left undecided under the present reforms will once again be taken up. It would be possible to try this, and perhaps to negotiate on this position. Yet we fear that this is simply yet another admission of impotence in the face of government attitudes which are totally independent of any kind of pronouncement, solemn or otherwise, by European and national parliaments.

Will a conditional yes manage to reach its goal, in the knowledge that the means for applying pressure are risible? Or is there a need for immediate, unambiguous, radical and federalist opposition, which undoubtedly risks running parallel to those who opposed Maastricht for nationalistic, defense or other motives, yet has the merit of extreme clarity and coherence with the battles that have been fought up to now?

The beginning of a crisis

In the current climate, these are the worries that lead us to state that non-ratification and a consequent crisis in the Community may be the necessary way forward to head off a change of direction which is jeopardizing the whole plan of building a democratic, open, and solid Europe, a political entity capable of contributing to the resolution of the major crises of our age.

We have no absolute certainties, but we would not want these considerations, which are not ours alone, to be brushed aside by the increasingly widespread conformism which, beyond an analysis of contents, takes the image drawn by the mass media to be the absolute truth.

The incoherent attitudes which are currently spreading, and which are mainly based on the fear of being excluded from history (in this case the history of governments) should be a cause of concern not just for convinced federalists, but for everyone who believes in democracy.