ABSTRACT: "There is no longer, I maintain, a single major problem that can still be seriously tackled with national criteria and methods." With these words, Altiero Spinelli, the father of European federalism from the Manifesto of Ventotene of 1942 to Nato's project for European Union, bequeathed his last political testament to the Radical Party. A few months after taking part in the Radical Party Congress, Altiero Spinelli died.

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

I will not repeat to you here the political, economic, military and cultural reasons for European Union. They have been discussed so much for so long that I presume all of you are familiar with them. I would just like to add to these reasons one that carries a great deal of weight, but which is usually deliberately ignored: it is often said that if European Union were not to succeed - and it is clear that there are great obstacles, and that we have almost decided to believe that it will not succeed - a return to renewed nationalism will be inevitable; a nationalism that is in fact already emerging in all our countries.

The tendencies to national arrogance, protectionism, xenophobia, racism and other similar 'virtues' generated by the mythology of the sovereign nation state are making themselves felt in a number of countries, including Italy. But this nationalist revival is nothing more than a lot of hot air that numerous politicians are stirring up in their speeches, because they have no ideas or criteria with which to judge the reality in which they are living.

The fact is that today there is no longer a single major problem concerning the economy, currency, the fixed link between our development and that of the poorer countries of the world, defence, ecology, scientific and technological development and the universality of culture, I repeat, no great problem that can still be seriously tackled with national criteria and tools.

That is why, in spite of the post-war restoration of Europe's nations, beyond the superficial mouthing of nationalist feelings - and particularly of nationalist slogans - of which we are witnesses, we can see that in Europe, almost all these problems are already dealt with in reality on supra-national levels. There are two essential methods in use today: the attempt to articulate a policy around the Community, with all its successes and failures, and the attempt to construct a Europe made up of Europeans. And at the same time there is the attempt to make a Europe consisting of Americans. And I would not want us to become pointlessly, and not even in earnest, outraged at the latter alternative.

Imperial unity under the aegis of America is undoubtedly somewhat humiliating for our peoples, but it is better than nationalism because it contains an answer to the problem of European democracy, whereas the return to the cult of national sovereignty is not an answer. A union made up of Europeans is in fact the only true alternative to imperial unity. The rest is not history, but the froth on history. (...)