ABSTRACT: The Treaty Project worked out by the European Parliament on the initiative of Altiero Spinelli (1) has been distorted and the inter-governmental conference called to examine it has ignored its principal expectations and demands. This is why it is necessary to answer the appeal made by Spinelli to the 31st Radical Party Congress by promoting immediately some popular action to put pressure on European governments to take some first true steps towards a European union. Quite aside from the questions of "right and left", the Radical Party ought to become - and can do so just because of its Statute - the "second party" of those who feel that more should be done for [a united] Europe.

(Notizie Radicali no. 165, July 21, 1987)

Altiero Spinelli left us one year ago. He was if not the last, one of the last prophets of [a united] Europe, the man who only two months before his death continued incessantly to stimulate his colleagues in the EP [European Parliament] against all attempts at regression, submission and abandonment of action in favour of a true European Union.

It is to him that the EP and the entire Community owes the Treaty Project for European Union that was approved on February 14, 1984, and which has excited such hopes among those who believe that only the political integration of our countries can bring about the EEC's escape from the structural crisis ion which it finds itself and can give Europe new thrust on the eve of the third millennium.

Everyone was in favour of the Spinelli project except for a few right-and-left-wing "conservatives" who still dream of the Utopian "nationalistic road", whether it be Socialist, capitalist, or liberal.

Everyone built their European election campaigns on this project, affirming to want to defend and promote the adoption of this new project. Everyone lied to the voters, because with a secret vote, everyone rushed along with their nationalist parties to put the dampers on the federalist thrust of the European Parliament and only to confer - once again on the national representatives - the job of laying hand on this project to make its contents commonplaces and reduce to nothing its elements of innovation.

The result has been a harmless text, denuded of all its progressive impact, which limits itself to accelerate the free circulation of persons, capital, and goods among the Twelve [EEC] countries by December 31, 1992... an element that was already contained in the 1957 Rome Treaty! But this text only went into effect last July 1, that is a year and a half after its approval by the heads of State and Government of the Twelve. The PR, our trans-national party, our party of militants without frontiers, rejects this desertion, this "spirit of Munich", which unites all the other so-called European political formations, aside from the good will of a few.

It is not enough to salve one's conscience easily by having one's representatives vote in a certain way in the European Parliament, well knowing that the representatives of the same party, on the national level, will oppose all attempts at a federalist Europe.

The fun is over. The time has passed when one could easily play at two tables. The time has come to make the decision for Europe one's priority decision, a political decision, a social decision.

The time has come to take a stance, to form a European party, on behalf of Europe, and for a United States of Europe. And this quite aside from questions of "right and left", because in this matter the differences lie elsewhere.

In short, the Radical Party ought to become the "second party" of all those who feel that more must be done to create [a united] Europe, seriously and immediately, as well as its being the first party of those whose values, hopes and ideals it personifies.

The road that we propose is simple: it can and must unite with that of the organised federalists and even be disposed to be its propelling element, so that the Radical method may become the catalyst of all those, today reduced to silence, who want the political union of Europe.

All the polls made on the European level prove that there is a majority in all countries, including Great Britain and Denmark, in favour of strengthening Europe, strengthening the powers of the European Parliament. And so then, we demand that consultative referendums be organised on a European level regarding these two simple but capital questions:

- Do you want a United States of Europe;

- Do you want the EP elected in June 1989 to be conferred with the powers of a constituent assembly for the purpose of working out a proposed treaty for the United States of Europe?

A first petition, signed by hundreds of citizens from all over Europe, has already been sent to the European Council which met in Brussels last June 29-30. It is clear however that an action of this kind undertaken in all countries presupposes a joint commitment of all those who do not accept the status quo, the technocratic road of the gentlemen in Brussels, of Jacques Delors and the others who are only capable of bending to the nationalistic will of their governments and of trying to repair the damage to the management and the orientation caused by themselves of their predecessors.

This commitment, this mutual will, must be organised into a party, a new party, that knows no national frontiers or barriers, and in which all can enrol and work together for the victory of their values and their hopes. It is, in fact, an illusion to think that pressure groups, such as the various federalist bodies, which are mostly organised on a national basis, can still be a valid tool for imposing a European will on the parties and governments that by now have consolidated their national interests and programmes in which the European dimension is more or less emphasised but is never a priority.

Certainly they all are to be found in the "internationals", the Socialist, the Liberal, the Christian Democratic ones. But these are mere juxtapositions of parties, politico-touristic forums where the respective "foreign" sections of the parties compare their individual positions, while taking care not to direct them towards objectives that aim at creating a new political entity.

And how, indeed, could the British Labourites work out a common programme with the French Socialists, the Italians, the governing parties in Greece or in Spain? Has one, for example, ever seen an individual enrolled in the "Liberal International" or the Socialist one? No, of course, it is not possible to do this, only the parties are members of these federations lacking in all real power of decision. Therefore a European Federation can not be constructed on these bases.

Thus it is necessary for the Radical Party to become the political laboratory of a new experience, strong in its statute which has always foreseen the possibility for all to enrol in the party, and in the motion passed by its Congress last February which launched the goal of thousands of members outside Italy as the political priority of the current year.

In order to organise a campaign on a European level for a United States of Europe, therefore, it is necessary for the greatest possible number of people in France, Spain, Belgium,

Germany and elsewhere to enrol in the Radical Party, the party of human rights, of non-violence, of conscientious objection and the affirmation of conscience, freedoms and democracy. The party that is fighting for the Soviet refusniks who are denied the right to emigrate, and at the same time is struggling to save Paula Cooper from the electric chair in the United States, or to get the release from prison of Michalis Magarakis, guilty only of having asked his country, Greece, to recognise the rights of conscientious objectors as the European Parliament and the Council of Europe sanction. These next few months are decisive, they will be the testing ground for success in a moment when the [European] Community is going through one of its most critical periods, for continuing Spinelli's battle, for imposing the priority of the United States of Europe, for a new year of Radical action. A series of initiatives are being started in order to make this summer the summer of Radical action. Groups of party activists wi

ll have to disperse themselves a little everywhere in Europe in order to make the party known, to collect memberships and adherents for our battles.

The goal is a very ambitious and difficult one: but at the same time it is the only one by means of which the Radical Party can make its voice heard and show its true image outside Italy, in order to give substance and reality to the project for which men like Altiero Spinelli have struggled all their lives.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Spinelli, Altiero (Roma 1907 - 1922). During Fascism (1929-1942) he was imprisoned as leader of the Communist Youth. In 1942 he drafted together with Ernesto Rossi the »Manifesto di Ventotene which affirmed that only a federalist Europe could impede the return of the fratricidal wars in Europe and regain for the continent a prominent place on the world scene. At the end of the war he founded the European Federalist Movement with Rossi, Eugenio Colorni and others. After the crisis of the European Defence Community (1956) he became a member of the European Commission from which point of observation he criticised the evolution of the Community's structures. In 1979 he was elected to the European Parliament on the Italian Communist Party ticket (PCI), becoming the guiding spirit in the realisation of the project for a treaty adopted by that Parliament in 1984 and known as the "Spinelli Project".