ABSTRACT: "The birth process of the United States of America is irrevocably linked to two words "constitution" and "congress". To establish the United States of Europe - maintains Giovanni Negri, Euro-MP and ex-Secretary of the Radical Party - only a most energetic pioneer spirit, a tenacious will to build "here and now" what all those who oppose us say they want in the future, but judge "unrealistic" today, can enliven the New Deal of a Europe of democracy and rights". A "Congress Party" is therefore necessary, which is capable of thinking and wanting Europe.

Thatcher is not the only one opposed to European political Union. However the British Prime Minister has at least the "merit" of speaking clearly. The others, the majority of European Governments, want European Union only in words. In fact, the egotism and interests of national bureaucracies do not miss any opportunity to set up hurdles on the track leading to the building of the Unites States of Europe. Only European public opinion which is mainly, even in Britain, in favour of a transfer of the necessary powers to a European Government, can have the strength to impose the reasonable choice of political union. But public opinion has neither voice, nor power. We need to restore it! Through referendums, constituent powers, and the General States of Europe".

("Single issue" booklet for the XXXV Congress of The Radical Party - Budapest 22-26 april 1989)

The birth process of the United States of America is irrevocably linked to two words: "constitution" and "congress". On the other hand it is not mere chance that Indian independence brings immediately to mind not only Ghandi's figure but the Congress Party, the movement of men and ideas which was an integral part of the battle for the liberation from the colonial yoke and for the creation of the new institutions, representative of a people emancipated at last.

This is what Europe needs today. Yesterday it was dismembered by the two super-powers; today it seems sentenced to decline if it proves incapable of becoming united. All too often Europe is seen by Europeans themselves as the "Europe of the Twelve", rigidly closed to the other half of the continent or as a mere market place, a theatre of economic manoeuvres - certainly never as a new indispensable political entity. Europe would deeply need the tension and creativity of a European "Congress Party". A party that in our present era, for the moment would be known only as a "democratic party" quite simply, given that despite the great wealth and the necessary Federalist opening for a United States of Europe, the European question is linked today with the modern democratic question; in a few years' time decisions about the type of life-style, activity, work of each European citizen will in fact no longer depend on national parliaments - already today progressively stripped of power and competence - but on a com

munity dimension lacking democratic institutions, and in no way controlled or guided by the millions of European citizens - voters who will silently suffer the options and consequences for better or for worse. This is why the great dividing line between progressists and conservatives, or better still, between democrats and authoritarians will inevitably come in the centre of '89 and '92. On the one hand the pretext of the free circulation of goods and capital without rules and in the absence of any kind of common political institution; on the other, the democratic and federalist battle to conquer a real European parliament and a real government responsible to it.

If this is what is at stake then it is true that no historical comparison (neither American nor Indian) can easily be made; but it is also true that only a strong pioneer spirit, a tenacious will to construct "here and now" what all opponents say they want for the future but consider "unrealistic" for today, can fuel the New Deal of a just and Democratic Europe that we need if we are to have peace, and in a world which sees precisely the values of European civilisation thinning out to the point of being threatened within individual countries.

Today this "Congress Party" capable of operating in Europe, thinking European and wanting Europe, does not exist. Neither perhaps does the pioneer spirit of a Spinelli, or at another level an Adenauer, a De Gasperi, a Schumann, the men who "thought European", starting from the post-war wreckage of their respective countries. It is necessary to invent them and certainly it will not be easy, perhaps not even possible. But what is certain, is that at least the shape of a "Party of the European Parliament" is coming to light, to which the Radicals can certainly say they have given an essential helping hand. When Delors, President of the European Commission, affirmed that "Pannella has been able to transform his personal leadership into the leadership of the whole assembly", he was referring to the decisions of extraordinary political value, assumed by the Parliament of Strasbourg, and received by the Council and the national governments with scandalous, outrageous hostility and silence, almost as if the Parli

ament had committed the offence of lèse majesté in its attempt to raise its head and really say something. On May 16, June 16 and September 16, 1988 the Strasburg Parliament conceived a few "Columbus's eggs", in other words simple, strong projects which altogether form the first outline of the new institutions and new rights which are essential if we are to achieve the prospect of European democracy. MP's from all the groups and of different nationalities gave life to heterogeneous and thus more significant majorities uniting to achieve objectives which are neither banal nor demagogic, but which have never been a unanimous success within the same assembly. What in fact did the European Parliament ask, that it aroused an icy and mute reaction from the summit of Heads of State and Governments in Hannover and in all the period which followed? Simply that 1989 should be the year of European Reform, of the birth of democratic Community institutions, without which the mythical deadline of 1992 is destined to t

urn into a step backwards instead of forwards towards political and economic integration.

The European Parliament has therefore asked to be granted the functions and powers of a real Parliament, and for the mandate in particular, to work out a new treaty of European Union. The European Parliament then took charge of another decisive aspect: the birth of an executive European body responsible before the legislative body. Hence the second request: the convocation of the "General States of Europe" in July 1989 to celebrate the bicentenary of the French Revolution. Euro-MP's of the twelve countries who at present constitute the EEC, united in the General States, should elect the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council, or rather the representatives of the government, the "speakers" for Europe, one more specialised in internal politics, the other more specifically competent in common foreign politics. Again, with a further declaration, the Parliament asked to hold consultative referendums in the EEC countries, also at the same time that the next electoral ter

m runs out in June 1989, so that millions of citizens may have a way to express their opinions about the birth of the United States of Europe and the consequent common political institutions.

Finally, with the last declaration approved, the Strasburg Assembly has laid a claim to the passive electoral right for every citizen of the Community, not only within his own country but also in the others; in practice the right for a Danish or Spanish citizen to be a candidate in the European elections in countries other than his own: a measure that will cause an immediate jump in the quality of the process of political union.

Public opinion over the whole continent, in the West no less than in the East, has not been in any way informed of these political acts of the European Parliament. National States, the apparatus of large parties, Eurocrats and great potentates all have a vested interest in sending the Europeans to vote with a substantially disinterested attitude under the flag of a lot of folklore and not much politics, to re-elect a useless Parliament for the third time in succession, the meaning of whose role has vanished. They want especially to be the sole actors on the enormously important European theatre afterwards, without being liable to give explanations to anyone.

We do not know what the fate of the Transnational Party to which the Radicals have committed themselves this year, will be. A great deal is up to those who are able to receive this newspaper and obtain information. What is certain is that if it is to have a future, in the coming months it must operate within and without the national and European institutions in order for this European "Congress Party" to take shape. Without it, no national party will be faced with its own responsibilities, no European democracy will be able to see the light (neither among the twelve nor in the other countries of the continent, which, beginning with Yugoslavia, have on the contrary a deep-seated need), every former or present European federalist hope will have to give way to past and present pressures. They, at least, never change with time.