By Giannni Bucci

ABSTRACT: We are busy taking up the inheritance of Altiero Spinelli in creating a European political federation. The European Radical Party will have to be characterised by a literally Gandhian movement. We will unify our continent by means of a great non-violent struggle.

(IL GIORNALE, January 22, 1987)

Strasbourg - The first day of the presidency. Sir Henry Plumb, the newly elected conservative leading the European Parliament, makes his first gaffe. He speaks nothing but English, but despite his sixty-one years, he says that he wants to learn another language. Which? "Turkish", he replies. An embarrassed silence falls over his questioners, because the entrance of Turkey into the Community is a hot subject.

This president shows with his first remarks that he wants to be talked about. In his official speech he surprises with his heavy criticism of Reagan's policies. Would this be shared by Margaret Thatcher, his political "patron"? Plumb starts by saying, for those who want to understand: "People must become convinced that what is debated and decided upon here is done in their name and not in the names of the governments of the member states."

Thus it would seem that Plumb is playing his cards as a European with a degree of freedom. Therefore he calls the American retaliatory measures "an attempt to make the Europeans submit". And he explains: "Our terrible crime is to have widened the Community to include Spain and Portugal." He makes a strong attack: "The American administration must decide whether it wants a united Europe on the West or on the East". He alludes: "Reagan is taxing our brandy more than he does Russian vodka". He concludes: "The Community must be ready to defend its markets, its employment levels and its own industries."

In short, he wants immediately to be seen as a son of Europe (the doubts of his opponents was that he would remain viscerally British) and he had the rumor circulated that because of him England would be more European. Plumb also credited with sincerity the Belgian Delors, head of the European Parliament's Executive Commission, thus provoking Marco Pannella's disdain: "This positive judgement on Delors", he says, "means we have to start the fight for the United States of Europe almost from scratch".

As the protagonist of the fight in Parliament which he began and led in recent days to avoid a choice between a conservative and a Socialist, Pannella had finally to give way and stop pushing for a third choice, the French Christian Democrat Pflimlin or the Liberal Simone Veil, because the left had insisted on the impossible candidacy of the Spaniard Baron. "The is left is truly united. In defeat..." he tells us in his study for a quick interview. Pannella holds a letter in his hand, one from from Ursula Spinelli, naming him the spiritual heir of the great combatant for European unity [Alberto Spinelli] who passed away a year ago. "It is a frightening thing to accept this inheritance. It means draining one's blood if necessary to achieve the European Federation in the coming years," he comments. And yet he seems to be well-placed in this Parliament which thinks more highly of him than does the Italian one. And here he is for once defending the Chamber: "Senatores boni viri, senatus mala bestia". In fac

t, apart from the obtuseness of the Communists, Italian MPs have joined in many of the Radicals civil rights battles.

We return to the question of Plumb. What line is he going to take? "I don't know, and I don't envy him. If he goes against Thatcher it is suicide, and if he doesn't he will make another contribution to taking us further from a United States of Europe." Pannella smiles in thinking about the rural origins of the new president: "The Italian Coldiretti exults and says that Plumb is one of her own. Yes, in the same way that Agnelli is a metal worker." Then he becomes aware that he is being ungenerous and adds: "I did not vote for Plumb, but I must admit that if sometimes this parliament has resembled a true parliament, we owe it to the conservatives".

"On the other hand, he has it in "for the obtuseness of the left" which countered his moves tending to block Plumb's success. "I induced sincere people to take away at least forty votes from him, and this is the political situation in which this parliament is wretched: they make petty calculations on the presidencies of the groups and on pacts with the Gaullists to decide on the names of the candidates. Only the Liberals have shown the courage to vote with me who promises no chairs".

"Europe will be created the way in which India was created", Pannella concludes, drawing a profile of the European Radical Party. "It will have to be literally a Gandhian party to unify Europe by means of a great non-violent struggle". Including hunger strikes? Pannella, a good eater, is ready for martyrdom: "Hunger strikes too".