DOCUMENT COMMISSION 87

ABSTRACT: The following document outlines a series of problems and alternatives relative to the constitution of the transnational Radical party.

The Commission, appointed by the Secretary of the Party, has been charged with the problems relative to the constitution of an "international, internationalist, lay and nonviolent party of human rights, of the United States of Europe, of the right to life and the life of rights, of the struggle against world hunger, of the safeguard of the planet from the threats and the attacks directed at the very equilibrium of the ecosystem".

The option issued from the Radical Party's Congress points to the constitution of a party without territorial limitations in the European area, whose key points are antinationalism and antiauthoritarianism. This was the basis for the two documents (the Statute's preamble and the Manifesto of Nobel prize winners) which represent the fundamental points of the project, and whose objective are human rights, which should overcome the barriers of national sovereignty and laws.

The transnational Radical Party means to overcome the European division, aiming at the creation of the United States of Europe with the purpose of giving political strength to the liberal democratic civilization. The ideal direction to be followed is the one that would make the United States of Europe into an institution aimed at extending a liberal democratic supranational law to all the countries where human rights are denied.

To date, however, the only referent the Radical party can look to is the European one. The cost of a 12-nation non-Europe, the cost of a Europe without integration, is extremely high: national institutions can no longer face the supranational dimension of urgent problems, because while the problems are real, the solutions are old and inefficient; on the other hand, the Community institutions are unable to conceive a single European government, at least in exclusively Community competences.

Most European parties agree to achieve the European political integration with balanced and separate supranational powers. However, the problem concerns the time requirements for its realization, in that this implies the risk of not being able to use the means of social and economic control, which are currently in the hands of the national parties, for electoral purposes. Europeanism should be completely disengaged from the political and economic pressures of the various countries, and should be common to all parties. Nonetheless, a European transnational party does not exist. Perhaps the Radical Party could become such, but the first condition will be to stop competing in national political elections. On the other hand, a party which no longer competes directly on an electoral scale, but which continues to compete in terms of political ideas and initiatives, can undertake the battle for the constitution of the United States of Europe. Only a total and collective commitment in this direction can enable the P

arty to try and to risk: thus, the disappearance of the Italian Radical Party remains an inalienable condition.

If the Party becomes transnational and a transparty, it will not only leave the Italian scenario, but also the European one.

In any case, such party could participate in the elections by supporting the candidates or the national tickets which mean to endorse its objectives.

Its contents have already been illustrated in the numerous documents of the Radical Party, whereas the political initiatives should concentrate first of all on the election of the European Parliament, whose task it would then be to prepare the new draft treaty.

A further proposal has been advanced, hypothesizing the creation of two parties, a European radical party, which would compete only in European elections, and not only in Italy; the other, the party of the European federalist group, would have the objective of reforming the electoral system in Italy, and would be a transparty.

PREMISE

The Commission appointed by the secretary of the Radical Party on the mandate of the Federal Council, to analyse the problems relative to the constitution of the transnational radical party and to illustrate the possible alternatives on which the Congress of the Radical Party, summoned for the end of October 1987, should express its judgement, has believed it necessary to draft a first working paper on the basis of which to open a debate in the party's various organs. The collection of the various contributions will enable the commission to draft the conclusive working document to be submitted to the evaluation of the federal Secretary.

In particular, the Commission has not been charged with the problems relative to the enactment of that part of the congress mandate which imposes "the investment of the necessary financial, organizational and militant resources to achieve the objective of a few thousand non-Italian members by the next ordinary congress of November", but with those relative to the constitution of the "international, internationalist, lay and nonviolent party of human rights, of the United States of Europe, of the right to life and the life of rights, of the battle against world hunger, of the safeguard of the planet from the threats and the attacks on the very equilibrium of the ecosystem".

INTERNATIONAL OR EUROPEAN PARTY

The choice highlighted by the motion of the Radical Party's 32nd congress is univocal: international and internationalist party, without territorial limitations to the European area.

This choice is buttressed by the congress deliberations of the congresses held as of 1967, starting from the one held in Florence: "Antinationalism and antiauthoritarianism are the necessary key points enabling this battle to be that same battle (not a battle merely related to it) which strong radical minorities are conducting throughout the world both in bourgeois societies characterized by political democracies, in those that are placed in the forefront by the anti-imperialist and anticapitalist struggle, by the objective of economic development and by the achievement of an authentic and full-blown civil independence, and in the other countries of State capitalism, which are also authoritarian".

It is on the basis of this type of formulations, from a national viewpoint, we pinpointed an internationalist, and as such a non-Europeanist prospect in which European federalism was conceived as a key moment, that we produced the two texts which contained the most complete synthesis of this orientation, and which represent fundamental pivots of the project of a transnational party: the Statute's preamble and the Manifesto of Nobel Prize winners.

The fundamental indication of such two documents, from this point of view, consists in the will which they express to make the safeguard of human beings as such and their rights, and therefore of the rule of law as goal and means into the objective and the parameter for politics, overcoming the barriers of sovereignty and of national laws, conceived as potential or effective deniers of the supreme right of the human being. This statement contains the right-duty for national policies and parties to engage in politics, and therefore organize themselves into a political part, with the purpose of tackling the true and fundamental problems of our time, in the awareness that these cannot be dealt with on a national scale.

In the light of this consideration and, on the other hand, in consideration of the importance assumed by the European federalist action in the Radical Party, it is necessary to specify the relations between the transnational dimension and the European one. The objective of the United States of Europe today has a radically different political and ideal value compared to the one it had in the times of Cattaneo (1) or during World War II. At that time, Europe represented the world, so to say, and the major contrasts that affected the world, denying legality and peace, were the ones that involved the European national states. At the time, therefore, the battle to defeat the dimension of the national State was fought by trying to overcome the European national states.

At this point, it is no longer true that the creation of the United States of Europe (of the Western-Atlantic Europe, this is the only realistic hypothesis) corresponds to the creation of a supranational law, in the sense in which it was previously meant; nor does it in any way represent, in itself, a step in that direction. In fact, the European national States have already become obsolete because of their reduction to regional states, with all the limits in terms of impotence, and therefore of political absence and quasi nonexistence, which this implies. It is no chance that the reduction of Western Europe into a province of the American empire, at least as far as strategic decisions are concerned, divided into regional states, has wiped away those major national antagonisms which represented the evil which the "historical" federalism fought against.

Today the prevalent europeanism is of an eminently "defensive" nature, it means obtaining a "national" State for the European people with a dimension apt to compete on an international scale, to safeguard its interests, and therefore to be a power in the current world. At the same time, it should be apt to achieve a more complete democracy in Europe than in the single regional European states, because of the greater possibilities which European citizens would have in making choices at the levels in which important choices are made. As such, the European federalist objective is a "national" objective, just as, on a smaller scale, that of a more complete democracy in Italy is, and not a transnational objective, if transnational is given the same meaning as in the Preamble and the Manifesto of Nobel Prize winners.

The theoretical limits of such approach were made evident in some of the initiatives adopted by the Radical Party, with the proposals of admitting Yugoslavia and even Israel in the European Community. Such proposals did not aim at an extension and therefore a quantitative enhancement of the European "state", but rather attempts to extend and overcome the European federalist ambitions. In other words, a Europeanism that wants to be a moment of political confrontation between the democratic-parliamentary conception, and the totalitarian one, between those who privilege the rights of the individual and those who subject them in a hierarchic way to the interests of the State, between those who underline the need for the rule of law which overcomes barriers and those who defend barbarianism in the name of national sovereignty and of the principle of non-interference.

With these fundamental corrections of European federalism, the transnational Radical Party can and must set itself the goal of the United States of Europe, with the priority which its range implies, in the same way in which it sets objectives of democracy in Italy or Naples: because the United States of Europe are necessary to give political force to the peoples of one of the few areas of the wold where the liberal democratic juridical-political civilization is well rooted, and to recover or obtain force and dignity for this civilization.

But is it a priority determined by the historical importance of the objective, or is the European dimension, while in its open conception, the necessary dimension of the transnational radical party?

Here we encounter the fundamental problem which has always hindered and continued to hinder the birth of transnational or international parties. Political parties, for their constitutive purposes, tend to arise according to the institutions which they aim at occupying or in any case at influencing, and, for the parties which may be considered to some extent revolutionary, according to the institutions which they aim to create. Therefore, what can the referent of the transnational radical party be, considering how unrealistic the hypothesis is, at the current state of affairs and in the conditions which can be foreseen for the coming twenty years, of significantly operating on the United Nations to transform it into an effective source of supranational law?

A possible ideal directive, which needs, nonetheless, to be completed with political contents, and whose remote possibility of success cannot be estimated, is the one mentioned above. The United States of Europe would become an institution open to all those states, regardless of their geographic position and ethnic base, who wished to join it on the basis of a full acceptance of liberal-democratic regulations. The political urgency is not only that of creating supranational law in those countries in which, albeit to an unsatisfying degree, there is a fundamental harmonization on a series of democratic principles (at least theoretically consolidated), but rather that of asserting the prevalence of a liberal-democratic law in areas of the world neighbouring Europe in geographic terms, where human and individual rights are violently denied.

At any rate, apart from any evaluation on the possibility of achieving a similar political enterprise in the space of this generation, the only non-Italian institutional referent which the radicals can currently look to is the European one; not so much the the Community institutions, but rather the referent outlined by the draft Treaty on European Union, passed by the Italian Parliament. For these reasons, without ruling out the political feasibility of a Euro-African federation a priori, but believing, on the contrary, in the need to reject an impracticable idea of a transnational party which claims to root itself politically and territorially in Japan and in North America indifferently, not on the basis of a political project but of a mere internationalist ambition, this document basically takes into account only the European dimension.

THE COST OF A NON-EUROPE

The cost of a Europe with twelve nations, twelve budgets and twelve policies has become unsustainable.

A European Parliament document drafted by Sir Catherwood maintains that the cost of "non-Europe" can be estimated to amount to several hundreds of millions of ECUs per year, if we consider the burden of the non-opening of the public markets, of the non-elimination of customs controls at the borders among EC countries, of the non-harmonization of the regulations and standards, of the effects on the cost price due to the limited size of the national markets, of the multiplication of control and supervision measures, of the multiplication of the research and investment programs and of the need to cover the exchange risks in the event of transactions between the States of the Community.

However, the cost of the failed European political integration is far more relevant is we consider, for example, the impossibility of conceiving a security policy based on twelve defence budgets, twelve Staff Commands, twelve military-industrial apparata and twelve foreign policies. Or if we consider the impossibility, for the single European countries, to solve the problem of unemployment starting from twelve research and industry budgets which overlap and duplicate, preventing Europe from being competitive on the international market vis-ŕ-vis the United States and Japan in the advanced sectors, where new employment demand may be created. Europe's technological gap has consistently increased, despite the fact that the countries of the Community spend almost twice as much as Japan.

The same applies if we examine the impossibility of conceiving environmental and energy policies capable of tackling the major and minor environmental disasters of today and tomorrow and the challenge in the energy field. To the same extent to which no single country alone can guarantee security and peace, national resources, policies and institutions are insufficient and impotent to face, for example, an effective defence of the European territory from chemical, nuclear, seismic and hydrogeological disasters.

"At present no major problem concerning economics, currency, the supportive linkage of our development with that of the poorer countries of the world, defence, ecology, scientific and technological development, the universal nature of culture" - Altiero Spinelli (2) used to say - "can still be seriously tackled with national criteria and means". Similarly, we are witnessing the crisis of national and Community institutions, of national parties and party Internationals, of national, Community and international law because of their incapacity to face the political priorities of the moment. The gradual degeneration of the liberal principles of parliamentary democracy and of the division of powers we are witnessing in all European countries - albeit to different degrees - in the name of the priorities brought about by the economic crisis, the deficit of the public finances, or by the Communist, Irish or Basque terrorism, represents the most evident symptom of the national state institutions' incapacity to face t

he new dimension of the problems. The progressive reduction of the parliamentary powers which is occurring in Italy, as in France or Belgium, the increasingly massive transfer of legislative powers to the executive branch through the misuse of the decreeing power or of the "special powers", both when it is reached through constitutional or regular modifications and when it is imposed by forcing the law, are the demonstration of the impotence of national State institutions in facing the supranational dimension of the emerging problems, which range from economic problems to those brought about by crime or by terrorism, and the influences of technological progress on decision-making processes. The problems are real, but the solutions adopted are obsolete and inefficient; the real need to find international forums for the development of economic and monetary policies capable of tackling the multinational dimension of the larger enterprises, including the criminal ones, is faced with the invention of extra-instit

utional political decision-making forums, subtracted to the law and to democratic control, and which are furthermore inefficient, such as the European council of the heads of government or the summit of the 7 most industrialized countries, or with the State's hypothesized renunciation in intervening on the economic processes; the real need to provide oneself with decision-making procedures capable of responding with the speed imposed, for example, by international monetary mechanisms or by nuclear alert systems, is met with the progressive transfer of the decision-making powers of the Parliament and of the Government itself to the monetary and military authorities.

Community institutions are in fact paralysed by the incapacity to conceive a single European "government", at least in matters for which the Community is competent. "National egoisms" and the interests of the major centres of economic and political power systematically prevent this. This hypothetical supranational authority cannot be democratically legitimated until it receives the confidence of a European Parliament conceived as the only expression of the European popular sovereignty, with effective powers of address, control and with legislative powers. On the other hand, the European Parliament will never conquer the capacity to impose the European political integration process if it continues to be composed of parties void of a Europeanist inspiration and especially until they are incapable of representing the interests of the social and economic groups which are emerging in the political Europe.

The crisis of the Community institutions is therefore first of all a crisis and an insufficiency of that Community law which has remained incomplete in the Treaties, despite the attempts decided by the sentence of the Court of Luxembourg. The European Parliament tried to fill this "democratic deficit" with the draft Union Treaty, completed during the previous legislature under the guide of Altiero Spinelli. During this legislature, the European parliament has denounced the institutional crisis of the Community with a document in which the proposer Michel Toussaint calls the "democratic deficit" "the result of the transfer, on a Community scale, of competences which previously belonged to the national parliaments, a transfer which has not been accompanied by a parallel enhancement of the powers of the European Parliament".

THE REASONS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A TRANSNATIONAL PARTY FOR THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE

The quasi-complete majority of European political forces, with the exception of the British Labour Party, a small Danish formation, the French Communists and the Gaullists, the Greek Pasok and the German Grünen, share the need to achieve a European Union, that is, a European political integration with the creation of balanced and separate effective supranational powers. On the other hand, the draft Union Treaty was passed by a large majority by the European Parliament during the previous legislature, with the unfavorable vote and the abstention of the above mentioned political groups.

In the same way, the European public opinion is largely in favour of the European union, as proven by the six-monthly opinion polls carried out by "Eurobarometer".

On the other hand, there is almost total disagreement on the time and the conditions for the realization of the European Union. Unfortunately, it is too easy to state that at the sate of the interests and of the political will of the parties of the countries of the Community, unless unexpected events occur, not only the European political Union will not be achieved in the coming twenty years, but even the modest project of complete integration of the inner market, which should - according to the Luxembourg Single Act - be completed by 1992, will in all likelihood fail.

This contradiction between enunciation and effective federalist commitment on the part of the parties of the European countries can partly be explained on the basis of the incompatibility between the corporative or national interests represented by the political groups and by the project for the transfer of powers to the new European institutions. The risk of not being able to use part of the means of social and economic control which are currently in the hands of the parties for electoral purposes discourages any Europeanist intention. We need only think of the consequences on the centres of national political power of the opening of public procurements to European competition, or the Community coordination of State contributions to the various economic sectors. Another anti-Europeanist element of influence is brought about not only by the interests of those "parasitical" economic groups with respect to the national State, but also by the large European multinationals which on the one hand invoke the libera

lization of the European market and of exchanges, on the other hand prefer to have, as a counterpart, a weak Commission and Council which can be easily manipulated, rather than strong Community institutions capable of an effective control and intervention on the economy, possibly aiming at the establishment of tight antitrust regulations.

There is no doubt that those social corporations which prosper on inefficiencies and on State welfare are tepid with regard to any prospect of overcoming the national State.

Altiero Spinelli, who had always cultivated the belief that the integration process was a necessity brought about by historical mechanisms, and that it was sufficient to operate in the existing institutions and political parties to advance the Union project, became aware of all this during the last years of his life. He had, on the contrary, ruled out the idea advanced by some that only a political and party force created intentionally on the Union project could achieve the objectives of the Ventotene Manifesto -European political integration during the generation which experienced World War II. Only in the appeal launched in 1986 to the radical congress attendees, urging them to mobilize, as occurred for divorce and abortion, on the political project of the Union, Spinelli seemed to realize that the defeat of "national egoisms and bureaucracies" could not be brought about by those same parties which were an integral part of these reluctances, but only by a new aggregate, specially devised for this project.

Today we can therefore state, in the light of the multifarious Europeanist experiences which have for the most part failed, that the hopes for the construction of the European Union all focus on the birth of a party which should be capable of containing in itself those various political features which no European political force currently succeeds in containing at the same time. This party should first of all consider that the realization of the United States of Europe is essential and vital for the achievement of its political objectives. Europeanism not as a possible option together with other ones, but as a reason of its essence and political survival. Moreover, it should be more fully disengaged from local and national economic and social pressures.

It should have consistent settlements in the countries of the EC and should be able to represent, at least in theory, those federalist components of various European families which lack the force to emerge. In other words, as is mistakenly said of the Greens, being a real cross party. It should not, therefore, represent a danger in terms of competition on a national and electoral scale for the existing European countries, a priori giving up competition in local and national elections.

Lastly, it should have that political determination which only religious movements have had throughout history.

THE REASONS FOR THE EUROPEAN TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY

This European transnational party does not exist. The Radical Party may perhaps decide to become such a party. It is the only party in the current European scene which can succeed in doing this.

Throughout these last years, the Radical Party has developed the belief that the institutional form and the essential political means to achieve the objectives it pursues, and which have inevitably remained unfulfilled, are represented on the one hand by the United States of Europe and on the other by the aggregation into a new supranational force on the part of those who consider it a political priority of our time to assert the "right to life and the life of rights". According to the Manifesto of Nobel prize winners, "a new political will and a new specific organization of this will are necessary, directly and manifestly aimed - with absolute priority - at overcoming the causes of this tragedy and averting its effects immediately".

The struggle for an active security based on the reduction of the threats to security represented on the one hand by that huge time-bomb formed by the millions of victims of starvation and underdevelopment, and on the other by the totalitarian regimes and by their decision-making processes disengaged from any democratic negotiation, calls for the prior existence of supranational institutions with effective powers and a supranational law, as well as with a transnational force capable of promoting it.

Thus, the struggle for democracy and the rule of law in Italy is doomed to fail if it doesn't tackle the crisis of democracy and law which affects all European countries to different extents, because of the incapacity of national institutions and the few supranational ones to provide a political answer to the economic and political problems of the moment.

Thus, the counterpart of a battle against pollution and for the environment dealing with the risks of the nuclear plants of Trino Vercellese or of Malville, of the chemical plants of the Rhine as of Genua, of the air and water pollution in the Mediterranean or of the skies of Europe, can no longer or not only be the national one, unless we consider possible an armed intervention on the part of our country against those States which continue to build nuclear plants, flooding the atmosphere with noxious gases or discharging polluting products in the common waters of the Mediterranean. The struggle for the construction of forums of supranational law is therefore essential and vital, for the very survival of the radical party and of its objectives, as they have been pinpointed by the congress motions.

RADICAL INTERNATIONAL OR TRANSNATIONAL PARTY

Another condition to conceive the European transnational party is represented by the existence of consistent settlements in the countries of the Community. The two possible options to realize this objective are that of a form of federation, or top-level coordination of "radical" political bodies, or the one based on the creation of the "international and internationalist, lay, nonviolent party of human rights, of the United States of Europe, of the right to life and the life of rights, of the struggle against starvation and world hunger, of the defence of the plant from the threats against the very equilibrium of the ecosystem", as explicitly indicated by the motion passed by the 32nd congress of the radical party.

To the extent to which it is held that the transnational party should, at least in theory, be a cross-party not only with regard to "human society", but also with regard to "political society", and therefore be the expression, also under the shape of double membership cards, of the different political families, the second choice seems to be a compulsory one. The identification of the transnational party in the various European countries with this or that "radical" force would rule out every possibility of gaining consents in the different political opinion trends, and of becoming the possible element of unity on the federalist objectives. On the other hand, the fact of being politically linked to national political groups in an exclusive way, and therefore ultimately being competitive on an electoral scale, would increase the difficulties in becoming the "second party" in the various countries of the Community and the "first" European country. The second choice seems to be a compulsory one, in spite of the f

act that on a statutory scale, forms of federative connections can be found with organizations that endorse the federalist objectives.

THE POLITICAL CHOICES

As far as the Italian radical party strictly speaking is concerned, in terms of political and organizational presence, as it has developed over the last twenty years, with the marginal exception of Belgium, the choices are difficult and burdensome.

Unless we want to conceive a party which is transnational, a second party, in the eleven countries of the European Community and a fully national party in Italy, the only choice is relinquishing, more or less progressively, the activities whose social reason is the achievement of objectives which are exclusively national, and competition in the national elections.

On the other hand, the above mentioned considerations in favour of this choice need to be completed with evaluations pertaining to the prospects of a political action in Italy and to the very identity of the radical party.

The margins of political development in Italy for a party which has never wanted to be a party representative of pre-established social and economic interests or of a minority ideological sector, and especially, which has always proposed itself as the bearer of potentially majority ideals and objectives, succeeding in many cases in becoming the core of the national political debate, are drastically reduced and compromised.

The essential condition for a party with these characteristics, of not being penalized with respect to its relinquishment of the traditional means for the collection of consent, is the safeguard of its political identity, the non-expropriation of its political history and the existence of democratic opportunities enabling it to be judged by the public opinion on the basis of the relevance of its proposals rather than on the electoral weight and the power acquired.

These are the conditions which have progressively failed in an ever more sensational manner. The last political elections and the events which have marked them, are the most eloquent demonstration of the absence of those essential conditions of existence for the radical party and in any case for any force which makes the same political choices.

A party which had imposed itself at the core of the public opinion, analysing only the first six months of 1987, with the victorious challenge of the achievement of one thousand members, then with the imposition of the centrality of the referendums in the political confrontation, with the action which brought about the substantial convergence of the socialist party with the radical theses relative to the lay unity and the relinquishment of the nuclear energy choice, the final acquittal of Tortora (3) and Vesce, the exclusively radical management of the conclusion of the period of office and of the confrontation with the Fanfani (4) government, the promotion of the campaign for the uninominal electoral system, the formation of electoral tickets which witnessed the significant and scandalous convergence of persons coming from remote political areas, would have obtained, in any other democratic situation, a far better result than that meagre 2.6%.

The allotment of L.6 billion, not only to protect ourselves with regard to the sponsoring of "Cicciolina" (5) but rather to safeguard our political identity, has proved insufficient. The referendums have faded from the collective memory or have become socialist and liberal, the last-minute environmentalists have now become the effective promoters of these last years of the victorious political battles against nuclear energy and the environmental disaster, the theme of the justice system, which divided the political and institutional Italy, has disappeared under the weight of Cicciolina's tits. The latter subject has not yet been completely attributed to another party to be mystified, simply because for the moment there are no candidates willing to fully represent the struggle for a just justice system, and the socialist party seems too interested, for strictly contingent reasons, in the clash with the corporations of the judiciary. If we want to avoid being doomed to a premature failure or to political masoc

hism, radical choices need to be made as soon as possible. A possible choice is that of safeguarding oneself with different means than those indicated by the Constitution, which want all parties to be guarantied the possibility of competing with equal opportunities for the government of the country, the safeguard of our political and historical identity and the opportunities of being the object of judgement on the part of the country.

It should be clear that, unless we want to redesign a guiltily minority limited political space for the radical party, which can be accepted - as no longer dangerous - by the power groups, the safeguard of our political identity implies the rapid disappearance of the autonomous Italian political subject represented by the "radical party", against which the obstruction has become almost complete, and, on the other hand, the attempt to achieve new and different political presences on the basis of the possibility of alliances constructed over the past two years.

A party which no longer competes directly on the electoral scale, but still competes in terms of ideas and political initiatives, can perhaps undertake this battle for the construction of the United States of Europe as the indispensable means and shape for the achievement of top-priority political objectives pinpointed by the congress motions as of 1980.

Lastly, we need to reassert that which had almost seemed a dogma in twenty years of radical history: the monothematicity of the radical party. To believe that today the construction of the transnational party can be achieved part-time, with the prosecution of the specific national radical initiatives, is a dangerous deception, which points to mental and political reservations on the transnational project. Only a total and collective commitment of the party in that direction can enable the attempt and the risk. The "disappearance" of the Italian Radical Party is therefore an irrenouncable condition.

PARTY OR NON-PARTY?

With respect to the scenario illustrated in the three previous paragraphs, a few considerations, perplexities and reservations can and have been variously raised during the commission.

If the direction we choose is that of a party which is both transnational and a cross-party, setting both conditions as fundamental and irrenouncable, the inevitable consequence - for the reasons explained above - is the exit of the party as such not only from national institutions but also from the European ones. If it is true that in order to create and consolidate a transparty we need to eliminate the concern for electoral competition (as proved by the experience of the last Italian elections: most of the transparty heritage accumulated in the campaign for the achievements of 10.000 members seems to have de facto if not formally disappeared, at least in terms of incisive and active political datum), then the need not to present party tickets applies to the European elections as well as to national elections, given that the national parties compete in the European ones.

We need to be aware of the fact that pursuing this choice with coherence means giving up the party's specific shape and features for the transnational force we are creating, even though (but in that case, for what purpose?) we continue to use the term "party". Even if we refuse the partyist and ideological parties' claim to be recognized as the only parties, we cannot deny that the peculiar characteristic of a party - organization of a political "part", versus the other "parts" - is the pursuit of its objectives with an array of means and initiatives which include, at least potentially, the fact of competing on its own for the obtainment of public powers, aiming at expressing the will of the citizens who identify themselves in its policy, and aiming at government. Clearly, a party remains such if, in given circumstances, for given reasons, it waives this function; but not if precludes itself this function structurally (it is no use explaining why the issue has little to do with the dilemma "movement or part

y" as the radical party traditionally faced it).

The decision and the choice are necessary: is that which we need and want to build a transnational party, or a new, more efficient and combative transnational European federalist movement, engaged in raising, moving, coordinating and supporting federalist and radical energies in the national parties, which are left the monopoly of the function of running and ruling?

The choice of the non-party, such as it is hypothesized in the above paragraphs, implies a deep reconsideration of all the conditions of the radical action, and not simply for that which concerns the relationship between the national and transnational dimension. The issue becomes how, when, with which means of action we can find the necessary "force" if we give up the idea of having an independent force in the institutions. The point of reference becomes first of all that of the radical experience before 1976, which is, incidentally, the season of the real and greatest victories (divorce, abortion, conscientious objection, voting age at 18, etc...). And our thought goes more than to the Radical Party proper to the LID (6), or rather to the LID-RP relationship. To what extent, in what ways, can those formulas be renewed today on a transnational scale?

If, instead, we choose to effectively aim at a transnational "party" (without relinquishing the achievement of the transparty as an important, fecund but nonetheless secondary element, only giving it less priority, consistently with the choices made to this moment by the Radical Party) the consequences as far as the participation in the elections is concerned cannot be rigid and defined once and for all.

From this viewpoint, giving up the electoral presence in Italy today could be correct and necessary, but not for a theoretical or general reason, such as the thesis according to which a transnational party should not compete in national or even administrative elections as a way of principle.

Generally speaking, how can we rule out that the true way to give force to the transnational battles is that of rooting and implanting them in the forums which are currently the siege of decision-making political powers, that is, national institutional forums? This can apply to the present day, on account of an evaluation of the available forces (does the fact of engaging most of the few available energies in Italy not exclude the possibility of an effective transnational commitment?) or on account of the need to give authenticity, interior force and credibility, first of all for the radicals but also for the outer world, to the Radical Party's transnational monothematicity. But it is something different.

Nor can we apply the theory, which we agitated without ever analysing it in depth, according to which each party should have one single area of institutional presence, corresponding to its programmatic name (the party built on national objectives competes in national political elections, whereas only civic tickets compete at the administrative ones, and European parties at the European ones). We have tried to apply it by promoting the environmentalist tickets and civic tickets, but this failed when - with our contradictory encouragement - the greens competed at the political elections. The parties' "natural" dynamic, with very few exceptions (which, like the radical one, cannot be generalized) is another one: it is no chance that no examples are given of dynamics corresponding to that theory in the countries of classical democracy. Even without referring to the experience of the Italian partyist parties, we can think of the Anglo Saxon parties, especially the American ones, which are simultaneously "conventi

on parties", federal parties, State parties, etc, in an extremely lay manner. Being a political part means running for the government of a society. To what extent can we do this, a priori waiving the possibility of administering this or that representative institutional level? Clearly, we need to consider that the transnational party we are thinking of is not, in itself, a European party, and as such cannot be assimilated tout court with the American parties or with any other existing political force. However, this does not change the core of the reasoning: multinationals also have their subsidiary companies or their national branches.

Moreover, even in the hypothesis of the constitution of a real transnational "party", available for an electoral presence according to the circumstances, the statements contained in the previous paragraph "radical International or transnational party" remain valid; even if we fail to give priority to the idea of the transparty, and therefore running the risk of the creation of a force which competes with the other parties, the solution of the federation or of the coordination of the existing "radical" organs (but how many are there?) would not lead to the result of constituting a real transnational force with those priorities, those ways of being a party which, for our part, we have hypothesized.

By reproposing the LIS's model of action, the transnational transparty could participate in the electoral competition by supporting those candidates or national tickets which endorsed its objectives. By way of principle, there is no obstacle to the possibility of endorsing radical candidates who run on other tickets as well, electoral agreement tickets or "radical" tickets, even if with a different symbol than that of the transnational party. Nonetheless, both from an organizational and political standpoint, it is hard to believe that the leaders of the transnational party themselves could run on a ticket which, apart from the symbol, could be identified as a traditional party ticket with a national electoral program. More acceptable would be the endorsement of a radical ticket advancing purely transnational programs. But apart from the many hypotheses which may be conceived, there remains the problem of the incompatibility between commitment on international battles and the bonds of a presence in national i

nstitutions. One example: the antiprohibitionist battle on drugs. It is hard to understand how the same leaders enagaged in raising the debate on prohibition in the various countries of the world in order to create a transnational positive law, can at the same time have a significant political presence in the national institutions. Unless we want to repropose the strategy adopted, at least in its second stage, during the campaign against world hunger, in other words, believing that the international mobilization can be stimulated by a government act of a single country. But apart from any considerations on the failure of this strategy in the specific case of the battle against world hunger, the question is why should we create a transnational party operating primarily in one country rather than a national party with transnational objectives.

CAN THIS RADICAL PARTY BECOME TRANSNATIONAL?

On a different scale, another problem arises, which the Commission has dealt with: considering that the Radical Party is undoubtedly the only party of the current European scene which has an interest and a vocation for the constitution of the transnational and European country, can it become this party, directly? The doubts are legitimate. First of all, because it is extremely difficult for an organization to change rapidly and deeply with respect to what it was and is; the nature of an organization cannot be violently altered: a far but secondary part of the party - the leaders and the members - would hardly want to endorse a total "supranational" conversion. Moreover, and above all, it seems hard for a transnational party or movement to arise as a simple enlargement of a national party. In order for such enterprise to be successful, a promoting core is needed, both credible and authoritative with regard to that objective. Such promoting core should not be national, and should be called not to support a rea

dy-made reality, but to plan the enterprise together. The current Radical Party could take the initiative, launch the appeal, the first impulse for the constitution of this nucleus. It could offer its structures, its political, organizational and financial means, its future, either by deciding not to compete in the Italian national elections in any case, gambling everything without reservations on the creation of a new transnational party, radically stimulating the energies of the militants and leaders in this direction; or pledging to form a new party, and waiving all national prerogatives once the latter is effectively created. Obviously, the credibility of the decision would be much greater in the first case, but so would the risks.

From this viewpoint, the organizational-statutory decisions should be instrumental in this nature of "promoter of promotion" to be attributed for this stage to the Radical Party, while maintaining the fact of drawing up a statute-manifesto as the one of 1967. But it would be more functional to formulate the latter not in the shape of a defined statute, but as a charter of the statutory principles to propose as the object of discussion and analysis, the means and the moment of the promotion of the new party.

Is this direction unfeasible? Are there, to date, interlocutors outside of Italy who may be interested in acting as adequate co-promoters in terms of capacity, commitment, authoritativeness, of this undertaking? And if there aren't, how can we find them?

THE STATUTORY CHOICES

Without meaning to interfere with the tasks of the specially appointed commission for the revision of the regulations, at this point we need to give a general outline of the statutory consequences of the options above illustrated.

A preliminary remark is necessary: without analysing the regulative details, it seems that the general structure of the statute of 1967, as far as the annual basis, the monothematicity and characteristic of congress party, the federative and libertarian organization fully match the requirements explained above.

The transnational European party with the ambition of having members in the different European countries, each with a different culture and language, the party of double membership cards, can only be the party of the yearly congress, the party of the yearly European convention, where one or two common and binding objectives are pinpointed for the members and federate organizations, while safeguarding the different national political positions of the radical subjects.

On the other hand, the transitory regulations passed during the previous congress state that the organizational entities should not have a national or territorial characteristic. The possibility of using the radical symbol in national and European elections should be strictly ruled out or authorized in relation to the type of choice on the ways of being a party.

The opportunities for non-exclusive organic convergences with political forces, parliamentary groups or political associations should be guarantied through federative mechanisms and structures, at burdensome conditions both in political and in financial terms. On the model, to some extent, of the organizational structure of a multinational, the conditions for a federative relation with the transnational radical party should be found not only in the adhesion for corporative reasons, but also in the participation in the capital. The degree of the latter financial participation would decide the level of representation in the vicarious federative organ of the congress. The first federate entities of the transnational party would be the federalist groups of the Chamber and the Senate, which would acquire a full political and organizational independence.

The transfer of the seat of the secretariat to a European capital other than Rome, apart from any symbolic meaning, would become necessary to fulfil obvious organizational requirements.

Lastly, the problem of the iniquity of a single membership fee for all, which cannot be identical in countries with different standards of living, could be solved by linking the minimum yearly membership fee to a given percentage of the per capita GDP of the country where the member lives (for example, 1% of the per capita GDP, which in Italy would correspond to L.148.000, in Portugal L.74.000, in Greece L.92.000, in Denmark L.199.000, in Yugoslavia L.27.000... and in Burkina Faso L.2.000). A wholly unexplored field is the one relative to the financing of the transnational party and the fate of the party's current "independent subjects", in particular of Radio Radicale. If we can hypothesize that the income issuing from the fees of approximately 15-20.000 members would probably cover the expenses for political initiatives, a totally different problem is the Radical Party's structure expenses and the relinquishment of the share of public funding. The non-presentation of tickets bearing the caption 'Radical pa

rty' would imply the loss of public funds and the impossibility for Radio Radicale to have access to the benefits of the law on the publishing field. As far as the structure infrastructures necessary to the transnational Radical party are concerned, we can hypothesize, on a temporary basis, that the federalist groups of the Chamber and Senate could devolve the funds of the public financing for the conversion of the activities of the independent subjects (European editorial centre; computer communications system, etc). However, by the end of the period of office of the Italian Parliament, totally new forms of financing and self-financing would need to be devised.

POLITICAL CONTENTS AND INITIATIVES

If the above illustrated statutory hypothesis can provide us with an organizational frame in which the transnational radical party could operate, equally complex and new answers should be given to the following question: through which political contents and initiatives can the transnational radical party be built in Europe.

The political contents seem to have already been pinpointed in the numerous documents of the radical party: construction of the United States of Europe, battle against world hunger, "conscientious affirmation" and proposition of a new defensive conception, safeguard and promotion of human rights in totalitarian countries, safeguard of the ecosystem.

It is more difficult to choose the short-term political objectives and the necessary political objectives to achieve them.

a) United States of Europe

The direction currently adopted by the Radical group at the European Parliament is that of asserting the objective of the attribution of the constituent powers of the United States of Europe to the European parliament, to be elected in 1989. The European Parliament should therefore be entrusted with the task of drafting, during the next legislature, a new Treaty project, on the basis of the one already passed by the European parliament during the last legislature, which should be ratified directly by the national Parliaments. This new Treaty should include the status for countries which decide not to join the European political Union. While the majority of the European Parliament formally agrees on this position, which is at least partly accepted by the resolution presented by Belgian M.P. Hermann, which was passed by the Strasbourg Assembly, there is deep dissent on the necessary political choices to achieve such objective.

The radical group and the federalists maintain that at the state of the relations of force, the Community institutions are not in the condition to agree on such commitment. Only a strong popular drive could force the governments toward the desired direction. In particular, we believe it essential for this purpose to call the consultive referendums in the various European countries with the precise issue on the European Union and on the attribution of constituent powers to the European Parliament.

The referendum proposal, however, clashes with many political and juridical hostilities. Several parties which are currently in power strongly resist such hypothesis (the British conservatives, for example); similarly, in many European countries there is neither the institution nor the praxis of the referendums (the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal and Belgium). Moreover, there are countries in which the referendum praxis is nonexistent (Greece and Luxembourg) and others which lack the institution of the consultive referendum (Italy). At the current state of affairs, therefore, we can imagine the possibility of starting initiatives for the summons of referendums in Spain, France, Denmark, Ireland and probably in Italy. As far as the other countries are concerned, it is necessary to first start initiatives for the reception of the institution which the forces deployed by the radical and non-radical federalists do not seem in the conditions to take.

These first remarks suggest an additional reflection on the need to foresee the concentration of the radical political initiative, at least during the first stage, to a number of countries where there is at least a minimum radical presence, where political initiatives have already been taken and there are minimum linguistic difficulties. France, Belgium, Spain and obviously Italy meet with these criteria, whereas in Greece there is the need for a margin of political practicability for the Radical Party also on the basis of the initiative planned in August in support of the objector Maragulis.

In a Europeanist context, we have to point out Marco Pannella's attempt to promote a "convention" of European intellectuals for the United States of Europe.

As regards the initiatives in the national parliaments and in the European parliament....

b) new defensive conception

c) battle against starvation and world hunger

d) safeguard and promotion of human rights in totalitarian countries

e) safeguard of the ecosystem and new development model

ORGANIZATIONAL CHOICES

Which means are necessary to achieve a significant presence of the radical party in the European countries, and - above all - which intra-European communications channels?

The first "organizational" problem, closely linked to the very conception of the transnational party, is that of communications. The question is not only overcoming the huge difficulties represented by the existence of nine Community languages, but especially finding the privileged communications means for the transmission of information by and on the party and for communication and information inside the party. Focussing on the second aspect of the problem, the party which has relied, throughout the 60s, on the post, then, for a very short period of time, on the newspaper 'Liberazione, and lastly, as of the mid 70s, on the radio, must make a similar choice as far as the transnational party is concerned. This will have a clear consequence on the nature and on the very composition of the party.

The possible options are the following:

a) privileged choice of written communication

b) privileged choice of radio and TV communication

c) privileged choice of computer-aided communication

FINANCIAL PROJECT

What is the cost of the single stages of the construction of the transnational party, and what are the possible fund-raising sources?

TWO PARTIES

In the context of the Commission, a further option summarized as follows by the proposer has been advanced.

We can hypothesize that the party of 10.000 members and, at this point, of almost 20.000 members (including members for '86 and '87) has sufficient energies to achieve parallel political projects. The campaign for the survival of the radical party has spoken to the intelligence of thousands of people, confronting them with the serious problem of democracy in our country and freeing the conscience of the citizens from the blackmail of the party which one must belong to for life and for death. The electoral results have clearly indicated, in this sense, a laicization of the vote and of a recovered freedom of consent to politics rather than to the system of the parties. The enrolments we have been "acknowledged" have been for the most part made with the purpose of saving this party in this country. Very often, those who are members joined the party not on account of a statute, but of a transparty campaign.

With the electoral campaign, we confirmed that we were asking for votes for a front which ultimately formed itself and which is posing severe identity problems to the Christian Democrat Party and the communists.

To this we need to add that the radical party has taken precise commitments with the electors as well as with its new members. And the commitments taken concern the reform of the electoral system and as a consequence of the parties, and the creation of a front with the force to be a true political alternative to catholic communism.

As far as we are concerned in a strict statutory sense, our party today has a "charter" which is shapeless and different in many of its parts, and an appendix to the whole thing, which also represents its premise, which is the preamble. The statute's preamble is in all respects the "principle" of the nonviolent party. The Radical Party practices two stages of nonviolence: "passive" nonviolence, which requires only a high degree of civilization and democracy as well as of tolerance and reasoned sense of opportunities, values which belong to our European tradition and culture; and "active" nonviolence, or "not killing not even for legitimate defence".

Granted that the preamble, as some have pointed out, is cosmopolitan rather than transnational, it represents and expresses a radical soul which must have the full right to choose and practice its own political choices. With an initial clarification which can be neither disguised nor omitted, that is, that those who choose this direction must have the freedom to do so not as a condition to their supporting the radical battles, but as a further option, almost an act of additional awareness which must leave other "radical" choices practicable. This additional freedom can be obtained only in one way: operating a division of the membership cards, of the statutes, of the motions. These two directions must therefore enable the full and conscious existence of the two "souls" of the radical party in a choice which can contain them both or alternative one to the other.

Two membership cards, therefore, for two parties which equip themselves with two different motions and statutes and which pursue political objectives which are clearly and unambiguously complementary but parallel. The first party (in order of description) could continue to be called radical - maintaining the denomination - but would have a different symbol, apt to immediately evoke the political characters of the statute's preamble: active nonviolence which reaches the point of not killing not even for legitimate defence. This party would have its own organs, its own members among those who consciously choose the founding principles, and would unquestionably pursue objectives of transnational politics (consultive referendum on the United States of Europe; campaign for a president of the United States of Europe; constituent powers to the European parliament; conscientious affirmation; struggle against world hunger; European regulations for deprohibiting drugs; European juridical space; rights in the East; nuc

lear energy and more).

The second party is the party of the federalist (and) European group, and its symbol is the rose in the fist; its objective is the reform of the electoral system in Italy and a transparty structure; it will carry out membership campaigns autonomously and on its own project; it will tend to have officials from other parties in its organs; it will prepare its own congress at the moment of the separation so as to enable an area of true political participation on the project of the electoral reform. The first (European radical) party will not compete except at the European elections, if possible not only in Italy. The party of the federalist group will never, as a rule, present its own symbol, as its purpose is that of presenting a front. If the characterization of the (European) radical party is the preamble, the characteristics of the group could be article 49 of the Constitution. It is obvious that while the fate of the (European) radical party is that of becoming the first party in Europe, the fate of the pa

rty of the group is that of living as a second party until the elections with the uninominal system. That is, in the substance and in conformity with the indications of the Constitution regarding the political parties, as an association of citizens who organize freely to pursue an objective, once they have achieved which they can pursue others or go back to other activities.

This means to say that the party of the group, if everything proceeds in the sense of the reform and of the elections with a uninominal system, will have no need to present its own tickets, but will compete inside the front. We can perhaps foresee that during the next year we will lose a consistent number of membership cards and members who had conceived a democratic "una tantum" in favour of the radical party.

The hypothesis of the two parties could open consistent margins to a stabilization of the number of members, and, especially, on the freedom of each person to choose, without feeling degraded to second class radical, the project and the degree of nonviolence he feels ready to "gamble". It is also possible to imagine that a greater number of members will choose the party of the group and that it will therefore have greater financial resources, especially if it reaches different agreements with the parties of the front (in fact, I would like to suggest a use of Radio Radicale extended to the front also in terms of expenses and revenues). We can perhaps imagine that the public funds will go to the (European) radical party to enable it to start off and provide itself with information and intervention means which cannot be in one language but which will need to tackle this gap.

Translator's notes

(1) Carlo Cattaneo (1801-1869): Italian historian and politician. Founded the magazine "Il Politecnico" (1st series, 1839-44), spreading the scientific and technical knowledge for civil and social progress, and underlining the role of the bourgeoisie and of capitalism. Exiled in Switzerland (1848), he supported federalist-republican positions. As from 1860 he published the second series of the "Politecnico", intervening on the themes of the national unification (economy, transportation, scientific education).

(2) Altiero Spinelli (1907): Italian politician. Leader of the Italian Communist Party's youth organization, he was arrested in 1927 and convicted by the special court. During his imprisonment he abandoned communism and in Ventotene, where he was confined, drafted the program of the European federalist Movement (1941) with Ernesto Rossi. After participating in the Resistance as a member of the Partito d'Azione, he was appointed secretary of the Federalist Movement (1948) and strived for the constitution of the European Federation. In 1970 he was appointed member of the Commission of the European Communities.

(3) Tortora (1928-1988): popular Italian TV entertainer. In 1985 he was arrested, charged with mafia connections, and imprisoned without trial. Later acquitted.

(4) Amintore Fanfani (1908): Politician. Professor of economic history, secretary of the Christian Democrat Party (1954-59; '73-75), Prime Minister ('58-59; '60-62; '62-63; '82-83), foreign minister ('64-65; '65-68), president of the Senate ('68-73; '76-82).

(5) Cicciolina (Elena Anna Staller): Hungarian-born porn star, elected member of Parliament in 1987 on the Radical Party ticket.

(6) LID: Italian League for Divorce.