ABSTRACT: Editorial of Notizie Radicali on the Radical Congress in Budapest: the extraordinary nature of the occasion, the precarious situation of the party, the appeal to join the party.

(Notizie Radicali n. 66 of the 25th of March 1989)

The appointment is in Budapest from the 22nd to the 26th of April, for the first congress of a non-communist and non-national party to be held in a country which for 40 years has been in the sphere of real communism. Appointment in Budapest for the first congress of the Radical Party to be held outside of Italy. A congress which asserts, to the whole world, the fall of the iron curtain, the birth and the strengthening of an important Spring for Europe and for the planet: the strength, the creative engagement of the ebullient process of constitution of a new democracy can and must provide an impulse towards renewal, give new life to the somnolent, static real democracies of the West. The Budapest Congress will also be the occasion for each Radical to become acquainted to, and discuss with, those hundreds of comrades who, in the first year of existence of the transnational party, decided - in Yugoslavia as in Poland, in Portugal as in Hungary or Burkina Faso - to join the party and thus establish the Radical P

arty.

But the Budapest Congress will also be a difficult one, extremely delicate for the Radical Party. The danger of having to close the party is still not over; the Radical Party has decided to continue and to attempt to resist, in the very little time left: only a few months are left to obtain results and consents, subscriptions and organized bases in several countries; a few months, a few weeks. In the mean while, the members of the Radical Party are approximately 1,200. Only 1,200 members of the party that holds its congress in Budapest, of the party that like no other has made the hopes of the people live and triumph, of the first European and transnational party. There is a clear disproportion, a patent contradiction. This is the party that holds its Congress in one of those countries in which for twenty years the Radicals have been arrested and tried while demonstrating for freedom and rights, democracy and justice; this is the only party which, not only from a formal point of view, has no national feature

s; this is the only party operating - apart from talking - in order that Europe cease to be crossed by more or less fortified borders; and this party has no more than 1,200 members. "Natural" contradictions and disproportions, for a party that has always experienced them - and endured them - in the few decades of its existence; but they cannot but cause it to disappear forever if twenty, thirty thousand citizens of Europe will not decide that the Radical Party is their party, the party representing their hopes. If they will not decide to build it.

At the end of February the federal Council of Strasburg decided to try the last possibility, using all the possible resources, for a last attempt. But these resources can last but a few months, a few weeks.

In order for the important appointment of Budapest not to be the last one.