Marco Pannella's speech to the European Parliament

SUMMARY: The homage paid to the concept of non-alignment is hypocritical. Things were diffent at the time of the Bandung and the Cold War. Non-alignment today means being absent. With this homage, Yugoslavia is being irresponsibly pushed in that direction. Today, you cannot have a country with 22 million people in a market economy on a human scale. This is sheer deception -- in those countries that had agreements with Comecon an "economic jungle" will prevail. Why are we applauding a "non-aligned and independent" Yugoslavia? What about France or Germany? The road to freedom is that of interdependence.

DEBATE AT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, Jan. 19, 1988

Pannella (NI). (FR) Mr. President, the homage you are paying to the concept of non-alignment is irresponsible, not to say hypocritical. Things were different at the time of the Bandung, at the time of the Cold war. Non alignment means absence, and you are pushing Yugoslavia in that direction by this specific, useless and irresponsible homage, which doesn't cost you anything.

It is impossible to transform a country with a population of 22 million people into a human scale market economy. It is deceiving, because in 1992, in the absence of any democratic control, the law of the jungle will prevail in the economy of our European countries that have made agreements with Comecon. This means pushing a serious people and government towards suicide.

Yugoslavia is applauded for being independent and non aligned. So, why isn't France independent and non-aligned? Why isn't Germany independent? The road to freedom is that of interdependence and not that of meaningless independence deriving from romantic and national-nationalistic concepts, which do not take into account historical reality.

Personally, I will vote against this report because we wish the Yugoslavian people , not Yugoslavia per se , to join our political community. To such end, it is necessary to guaranteee full respect of human rights. Only in this manner will we be able to improve together the conditions of life for all our people. What you are proposing is a sad and useless utopia.