SUMMARY: In his report to the Federal Council of the Radical Party gathered in Rome the First Secretary, Sergio Stanzani presents his first evaluation of the Radical Party's state since its congres in Budapest.

After a description of the possible political initiatives, he is constrained to acknowledge the lack of means needed for their realisation. And so, only two options remain: 1) set into motion the mechanism of "full powers" attributed to the secretary, treasurer and presidents of both the party and the federal council, by entrusting them a last goal which, in case the latter is not reached, entails the party's winding-up: to convoke for next spring in Moscow a constituent convention of a new radical political force, capable of attracting a large number of adhesions from all over Europe. 2) fix "the necessity to recompound the political-organisational asset of the party" as its primary need.

Dear Comrades,

After the Budapest Congress, after that great triumph of the Radical Transnational Party which is still incredible today - this is the first meeting of the Federal Council with an evaluation of the Party's situation on its agenda.

In fact, the meeting of the Federal Council which was held in mid-May in Rimini, on the occasion of the "Italian" Congress according to the regulations, elected Marco Pannella as its own president and fixed the date of the next meeting (this one) for the end of July. This date was chosen for reasons which have made it impossible to hold more than one other meeting this year, which should take place before the autumn.

A FERVENT HOPE - THAT THIS WILL BE THE FIRST EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT WITH CONSTITUENCY POWERS

We are meeting for the second time after five months here in Strasbourg, at the same time as the first session of the third legislation of the European Parliament elected by universal suffrage by the citizens of the twelve member countries of the European Community. I greet all its members and give them our fervent wishes in the hope that they may be elected to the first European Parliament "with constituency powers" which wants and is capable of being united.

In this greeting and in this hope there is also - as a Radical and an Italian citizen - the force of the positive vote with which on June 18, more than 1.88% of Italians responded to the questionnaire concerning the referendum to propose the powers to be attributed to the European Parliament.

There is yet another significant result. This is due first and foremost to the action of our comrades elected in the Italian Parliament, which has met with the general consensus of the other political forces and subsequently in the course of the electoral campaign has also had the direct support of those Radical spokesmen and militants who coloured the election period with their own utterly independent initiatives and dynamism.

In Italy four have been elected to the European Parliament on lists promoted or constituted by these comrades of ours. Three are members of the Party, who were sitting in Strasbourg during the previous legislation when they were elected on a single Radical list with the direct commitment and resources of the whole Party.

Concerning both the political situation in Italy as regards our comrades' initiatives and the situation of the renewed European Parliament, besides whatever I can say here, those comrades who have promoted and interpreted them are better equipped to do so in more detail in their own reports.

THE SIGNIFICANCE AND VALUE OF THE EUROPEAN ELECTIONS OF JUNE 18: CONFIRMATION, THROUGH THE FACTS, OF THE PARTY'S WISH TO BE TRANSNATIONAL, WHICH PASSES THROUGH THE TRANSPARTY "ITINERARY"

With June 18, the Party maintained and respected its commitment not to run as such in the Italian elections first, nor in other countries. This confirmed that the Radical Party wanted and wants to be transnational and that to be so, it must be transpartite. This implies that it must be capable of making itself a single, autonomous political force, going beyond, and also through, specific national environments.

The deadline of the European elections in Italy, was a proof, a deadline with which it within which it had to come to terms with the consistence and resistance of its own reality, due to obvious historical motives, which left our opponents and most observers - even the closest and the most interested - sceptical and incredulous or at least extremely dubious: the Radical Party did not want, was not able, would not have, the strength and the capacity to refrain from running in the elections. In my opinion, June 18 is a memorable date in the history of the Radical Party, linked forever to the days when we heard that the 35th Congress was confirmed.

On these two occasions, the Radical Party concretely achieved the political assumptions indispensable to carry out the spoken commitment of the Bologna Congress: to become transnational and transpartite.

With the Budapest Congress and what happened in Italy with the elections for the European Parliament, we are with no further doubt a transnational and transpartite party beyond the point of return: we cannot and could not be anything else. I maintain that it is clear to everybody that a great deal has changed in terms of potential and political prospects.

If with Budapest we plotted a new course, in unquestioned and unquestionable terms, whose impassable conditions and the tremendous obstacles to be overcome were sanctioned by the approved motion, I feel it is also true that with the elections of June 18, our former course has definitely come to an end.

With the Budapest Congress and the European elections, a first phase in the process of the transformation and relaunching of the Radical Party has been achieved.

The Radical Party we knew, characterised by participation in the Italian political elections and consequently representation in the institutions, has concretely, visibly ceased to exist. If it is unthinkable now that we could go back on what we have opted for from the Bologna Congress to date, we are still far from being able to affirm that the new Radical Party already exists.

Certainly the Budapest Congress and the results of the choices made in Italy for the elections of the European Parliament have also enabled us to achieve some most valuable political triumphs. We can better recognise the potential of the transnational and transpartite option, better understand the theoretic and practical richness of such options and recognise the urgent need for them. Nevertheless, at the same time, the existence of the same successes we recorded oblige us to measure the problems to be overcome and the lack of means and time we have, to turn these potentials into real, political organisation and concrete operational capacity, hence an effective possibility of transnational and transpartite political combat.

THE BUDAPEST CONGRESS

As regards Budapest, someone said on that occasion, that we had confirmed our capacity to create events. In facts, this Congress had political importance, value and significance, because it was held in Budapest, with those particular participants from both within the Party and without, rather than for the sake of the Congress debates or its deliberations.

This affirmation is undeniably correct, which changes nothing, on the contrary, it reinforces Budapest's importance. Because this event actually happened. Because moreover, we have a history of operating politically not only affirming ideas but attempting to advance them through concrete achievement: events, to be precise. Someone else said that the Budapest Congress did not manage to spark a real discussion between those present, but rather that they had to listen to a long string of uncoordinated monologues, which sometimes did not even converge, with the minimum common denominator. A good part of this is true, too. Budapest involved a great may things. The hopes and expectancies of so many comrades from so many different countries, members and non-members of the Party, were pinned on this, our first transnational Congress. Budapest was both a point of no return and a starting point: Budapest opened a door. No congress could provide more, other than the collective awareness, expressed in the fina

l motion, of the extreme difficulty of making full use of this possibility and transforming it into reality.

THE LIGHTS AND SHADES OF OUR TRANSPARTITE ELECTORAL STRATEGY

Even the indisputable success of our electoral strategy

at the European Elections in Italy shows patches of light and shade as regards the prospects of the Radical Party. Whoever maintained that the effect of the Bologna motion's options would be the disappearance of the Radical Party from the Italian political scene, would create a void to remain unfilled, and even be a sign of crisis and flight from the reality of its history and political commitment, was belied by the facts. If by faith in its decisions the Party has renounced standing in the elections, the initiative of the Radical Party and its members has been more forceful, more efficient and more alive than ever. Radicals were present on at least four electoral fronts, through as many political initiatives, all directed at the reform of Italian politics and their political alignment:

- with the Liste Verde Arcobaleno for Europe, to increase their capacity for penetration of the Green Movement and to unify the fight to protect the environment, and for democracy and human rights;

- with the candidature in the PSDI, to safeguard a prospective of unity and socialist refoundation based on federalism and on respect for the various histories and cultures, rather than a brutal plan of annexation,

- with the promotion of the Federazione Laica, to try to undermine a destiny of the fragmentation and the weakening of these forces, and to consolidate the liberal democratic prospective;

- with the Antiprohibitionist list, to make a valid leap forward by using the particular Italian advantage in the battle we have engaged here in Italy, with the institution of the IAL;

On a fifth front - relations with the Communists - we were, I believe, just as efficient from the moment we even invited the PCI (Italian Communist Party) to vote - though we had no candidates to back on these lists - for the policy of transition to the "new course" of the present Secretary and the group currently directing the PCI.

We have had four political successes out of five; and four electoral successes out of five.

On the social-democrat front, the political success of the initiative (it will prevent the disappearance of the PSDI

and its electorate being absorbed by the PSI) was not accompanied by Radical electoral success: none of our comrades was elected. On the lay front, Pannella's electoral success did not unfortunately, go with the general success of the initiative. If, nevertheless, the electoral proposition was vanquished in these circumstances, it was Bettino Craxi himself, the leader of the PSI who tried to avert its strategic importance and its danger, and make it an irrevocable failure..

For our non-Italian comrades, I repeat and specify that the Radical initiative has brought two parliamentarians of the Liste Verde Arcobaleno per l'Europa to be elected: Adelaide Aglietta, and a single one - Marco Taradash, elected in South Italy on the list including Liberals and Republicans, as well as some Radical spokesmen such as Marco Pannella.

But next to these triumphs, these "patches of light", I must not be silent about the shadows and the limits of our transpartite initiative.

This was first the initiative of Radical spokesmen and militants within the Radical Party only, and has now become the commitment of various fronts, in various national, political and electoral bodies. Nevertheless, support of the transnational and transpartite Radical Party by militants, leaders and parliamentarians does not so far correspond to this initiative other than in a fairly limited and exceptional way, and the same goes for the supporters of national parties in the other countries.

At the "Italian" Congress in Rimini, it is true that important support came from Comrade Bordon, a militant PCI parliamentarian. There are Green comrades, such as the MP Lanzinger, or Social Democrats, such as the MPs Pagani and Caria, or Socialists - who in this way defy the anger of their Secretary - who have joined the Radical Party, and Shoulamit Aloni, the prestigious leader of the Israeli Movement for Civil Rights, a member of the Knesset, also joined our Party.

But these, together with some other notable exceptions, make me everything but satisfied with the state of our transpartite initiative, in terms of the force of the Party, of its capacity to be a really oblique presence as regards traditional political forces.

THE REPORT ON THE "STATE OF THE PARTY"

Dear Comrades,

on May 1 last year Paolo Vigevano and I, in Madrid, presented the report on the "State of the Party" to the Federal Council. It was a document of recognised value, translated, printed and widely distributed, which we can reasonably reckon everyone received.

The report - through an accurate analysis of the activities to be carried out, the necessary resources, and those available, quite apart from the relative costs - reached an evaluation of the "overall value" of the political-organisational assets of the Party (13 billion 500 million lire) and showed up the incompatibility of the new and different needs and requirements imposed by the decision adopted by the 34th Congress in Bologna, to become a transpartite and transnational party, and not therefore to stand in the elections in any country (most of the 13 billion 500 million derive from our presence in Italian institutions).

The report also describes a preliminary general framework of the "dimension" the Party must assume, to be able to efficiently implement what the Congress dictated; the last deadline was also fixed by which its conversion must be completed: the term of the legislation underway in Italy.

The economic-financial parameter is only used to allow a quantitative expression of the political and organisational analyses and evaluations contained in the report. Using the same parameter, the new "dimension" is then represented - a feature in "Notizie Radicale" - in a purely indicative way, with an image of the Party with 20-30 members (equivalent to 5 billion lire of self-financing).

The "State of the Party", enriched and integrated with analyses, considerations and questions contained and put in later reports by Paolo and myself, presented to the Federal Councils of Grottaferrata and Jerusalem, and then a large part of it all in my report to the Federal Council of Trieste-Bohinj (even this written, translated, and distributed wand circulated within the Party), forms a political document of "planned commitment", the whole of which was also approved as well as the additions of the Federal Council, never later denied, and therefore still valid for the Party organs. It is a document then to take as a term of comparison to evaluate its progress and performance.

I also feel once again that I must insist on the limits of the significance we should attribute to the economic and financial parameter to be assumed as the quantitative expression of a much vaster and more complex political and organisational reality, formed and essentially disposed to consider the Party and its "dimension" as an "adequate operational complex", thus endowed with efficacy and efficiency, able to respond qualitatively and quantitatively to its own aims with the necessary speed and also within compatible financial limits.

Considerations and evaluations of the Party as a means, as an instrument of political initiative and combat, have emphasised startling contradictions in the interpretation of the correspondence of organisational methods and the models to be used for the purpose of pursuing them.

These are problems which we have never yet dealt with in our debates nor even considered, because they are foreign and distracting to "the quality of politics".

To my mind, even these are due to the progressive engagement in a regressive process which has in fact crept into attempts to make the political and organisational "dimension" adequate for the needs of being, or more correctly, of becoming a transpartite and transnational party.

THE PARTY'S CONVERSION FROM A NATIONAL POLITICAL FORCE TO A TRANSNATIONAL POLITICAL FORCE

We do not always realise that we have imposed on ourselves the conversion of the a party of an essentially national political force into a transnational political force (being transpartite is a condition, a necessary assumption but not sufficient).

Even in the field of business, conversion is one of the most complex operations to deal with and the most difficult to pull off, and business is a field where variables (in other words, the laws rules governing the factors in play), are at least well known, adequate data bases are not lacking, there is access to highly sophisticated methods and systems of analysis and finally, the necessary skill is to be found.

In politics, for a party, the factors at stake are usually unclear, and if determined, they are subject to laws and regulations, or where these exist, they operate in fields of variability which are difficult to control: planning, programming is virtually impossible but for conversion it is always necessary.

In politics the margin of error is always very high, the error has almost become "the rule". Flexibility and speed and the "qualities", the conditions required to absorb the error, conditions which are often expressed in terms irreconcilable with the minimum capacity for planning and programming which are indispensable to guarantee continuity in the task of conversion.

In our case, when passing from one "historically defined reality" to a new and different "entirely unspecified" reality, continuity and duration are conditions which prevail! Consequently, only to think of the solution, and if possible, localise it and put it into practice, needs time. Conversion is a process; invention and creative imagination are made up of "moments", even though they may often be neither continuous, nor adequate nor easy to understand. Therefore the two systems of time tend to diverge. We are suffering the consequences of all this: only with the elections of June 18 did we acquire full awareness of the value and significance of the term "transpartite".

From the start, being "transnational" appeared sufficiently clear and comprehensive, an "exhaustive term". Being "transpartite" was for a long while considered an "accessory", almost "superfluous". The very use of this term was unknown for a long time.

Today I feel that one must be convinced that the conditions of being "transpartite" are a preliminary (and not a priority) to being transnational.

THE POLITICAL PROPOSAL OF THESE MONTHS HAS SUBMERGED THE PARTY RATHER THAN KEPT IT ALIVE

I believe that we ought to recognise that in the past few months, with the Budapest Congress and ever since, Radical imagination, and creativity have enriched the Party - directly and indirectly - by an unthinkable political proposal. But we should also recognise that the offer was such as to submerge the Party rather than to keep it alive.

Floods, dear Comrades, do not increase the potential of the hydro-electric system; if everything goes according to plan, they fill the containers, but otherwise they cause them to overflow and and often whirl them away, and energy production goes into tilt!

In our case the Party's political and organisational process - already inadequate by itself to meet the new requirements and moreover staggering under the weight of uncertainty due to the effort to launch its conversion - has not resisted the multiple and even contrasting requests for political production, overall not only incompatible but barely adequate for the system. All the same, in the efforts to face up to the situation, other alternative orders have been established. In this way, not only has the conversion process been interrupted, but what was left of the pre-existing order has disintegrated.

In such conditions, this should have incited astonishment and incredulity, if there had not been a drastic fall in the overall efficiency of the Party, with considerable gaps in productivity.

THE SITUATION FORECASTS THE INEVITABLE CLOSURE OF THE PARTY

This could be a theoretical consideration, or worse, an abstract foreboding lacking concrete interest and boring as well. But, in spite of the great triumphs of Budapest and the European elections, the results of the Party, for the Party, are incontestably there, in the report and in the documents drawn up by the Treasurer, and they are disappointing, even devastating. It is also necessary to make an effort to understand a situation which forecasts the Party's closure as increasingly inevitable, if there is still the will to find a way out.

I am trying as hard as I can.

There are only a few more than 2.500 members: even if every possible evaluation is taken into account, this is certainly a result that is no better than the situation last year at Jerusalem, even if the whole political framework has changed since.

There is however, one aspect which is more serious than statistics. The appeal which the Party, with the Budapest motion, addressed particularly to the ruling classes in every country and to their most liberal and responsible leaders for an immediate, wave of enrolments and support to avert the Radical Party's end, has not yet had an adequate response, as I already pointed out at the beginning of this report. The reasons, the causes pointed out by the motion due to the "real democracy", to the system of Western regimes and especially to the partitocracy in Italy as well as to the serious problems which continue to persist in the countries of East and Central Europe, persist, but it is also indisputable that we - the Party - have succeeded in doing very little in this period to broadcast the success, the importance of the results achieved by the Congress in Europe. In Italy, busy, and inevitably "distracted" by the need to assure the Party the basis for becoming transpartite, our action as a transnational

political force has not had the presence or the vigour essential to acquire at least the first significant batch of enrolments:

There are accordingly, motives and responsibilities of ours, of the Party as such, my own in particular, which we should analyse and evaluate.

In my opinion, I am more and more conscious of the contradiction within me between the growing conviction of the value of our political proposal and the incapacity to provide a concrete, adequate response.

I do not wish at this point, to repropose the issue of "the original quality of the Radical" as an element to resolve the Party's current crisis. I am the first - in all consciousness - who is not personally able to find a positive solution for the contradiction in these terms. It exists nonetheless, and I think that its significance, its weight, have vaster dimensions and deeper repercussions than what we have been led to believe.

Neither is the economic and financial situation, explained in the Treasurer's report and documents, any better than was the situation in Jerusalem eight months ago.

I leave the subject to Paolo; In this context, I only want to put a question and supply an answer.

THE ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL SITUATION.: HOW HAS IT BEEN POSSIBLE UP TO NOW, TO GUARANTEE THE RADICAL PARTY'S EXISTENCE?

In this situation which has lasted for over a year, how has it been possible to support until now, not only the cost of the management of the Radical Party and Radio Radicale, aggravated by the not inconscious expense of the Budapest Congress and the "Italian" Congress in Rimini, but also to face an electoral campaign which has inevitably had its own particular reference and co-ordination points, and still be in a condition which permits us to hold this meeting, whose cost will certainly not be insignificant?

The motion approved in Strasbourg, when the Federal Council met precisely here in this city before the Congress, authorised us to borrow on the public financing for 1990, which we did; and to also have access to the Party's resources to continue the fight for the Party's existence until they were exhausted, abandoning - as you will remember - our project for the "controlled liquidation" that Paolo and I had planned (and perhaps not adequately defended).

Moreover, it is also true that the electoral results of June 18 have meant consistent remuneration by the Italian State for the two lists promoted by our comrades, and other (much more modest) contributions have been allocated by the two lists of other candidates, but even taking into account these contributions, our total financial resources would not have permitted us to continue until today, since the real difficulty of obtaining the available resources in time must also be realised.

It is evident that we have had the chance to benefit from other financial resources.

The nature of these should be defined rather than their amount, which is not negligible.

The sources are of a financial nature (money or services) from the various normal commercial operations associated with the activities of third parties, nurtured and developed in relation to "autonomous initiatives" (many of us will remember the reports by "autonomous persons" for years at our Congresses) taken by some of us in the television sector. They are "all Italian" activities, and seek to encourage local, popular, provincial or at the most regional broadcasting stations, directed along lines which cohere with the political evaluation of the Party in this sector; but they are always money-making business activities pursuing the private interests of others who are distinctly separate from the Party.

This is not a novelty - for years in this field the Party has contributed financially, bearing heavy costs for "Teleroma 56" "Canale 66" and "Canale 25" (three local television broadcasting stations, two of which operate on Rome and Lazio and one on Milan and Lombardy) and which are also part of the Party's patrimony, a component which in recent years, is producing positive results in financial terms through a combination of favourable circumstances. If these results are not carefully considered, they could also have at least two negative political consequences: with these, the effect of self-financing on the Party's general financial position - its "value" - is reduced still further: In the second place it could introduce very dangerous illusions, causing this to be seen as a form of financial "solution", when on the contrary, resources are totally inadequate, and moreover, uncertain. They are welcome puffs of oxygen, but we need fresh air which does not come from oxygen cylinders. We must come out of

hospital, if we want to live!

Dear Comrades,

Reality is that these resources - due to a particularly serene season, but the symptoms of a worse transformation are already present - have only contributed to helping us overcome the circumstances of the crisis which we punctually and constantly announce and which still persists: we have only succeeded in postponing the moment of the fall for a few months, nothing more.

The Party's economic and financial situation is still today conditioned by its establishment in the institutions and - when too the legislation in Italy must be put off - at the beginning of 1990 a further loan on public financing is utterly improbable. Thus, whoever today wants in the present conditions to delude himself on our possibility of economic and financial capacity, let him go ahead, but the "habit of the miracle" seems idiotic to me, especially for a Radical.

THE DOMAINS SUITED TO POLITICAL INITIATIVE AND COMBAT

Today we must also work out whether there are any possibilities of embarking on a programme for the relaunching of the Transnational Party. This is only possible through transnational political initiatives and combat:

1) the fight for the United States of Europe in the European Parliament, in the States and in the EEC institutions;

2) the fight for human rights and political initiatives for the development of democratisation processes in communist countries beginning with "perestrojka" and "glasnost",

3) transnational initiatives for the affirmation of our position and for an antiprohibitionist policy in the field of drug

addiction.

THE FIGHT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE

It is useless to conceal the problems of affirming our battle for the United States of Europe. Against the prevalent policies of the twelve governments, we are the bearers of an integrally, radically, federalist, supranational and community alternative.

This policy which has been decided by the Italian parties, on our proposal and at our request, of submission to popular vote, received 1.89 % of the votes at the referendum which took place in Italy at the same time as the European elections; We have no doubt that the consensus of the electorate in almost all the European countries will be the same, if the decision for the constitution of the United States of Europe is entrusted to the European people.

On the contrary, European themes were blatantly absent from these elections, in almost all the European Community countries, with perhaps the exception of the UK, where Margaret Thatcher's defeat is attributed by all to the European option, for the first time adopted by the Labour Party, who were rightly rewarded in the elections.

Elsewhere, the "settling of differences" between the parties on a national level prevailed on the European programmes.

The electoral platforms of the international parties, are therefore the only way to measure "ex post" the outcome of the vote for the policy of the European Parliament in the next few years. The whole thing was vague beyond words. The Christian Democrats, nevertheless - and we must do them justice - wrote their good intentions on the theme of institutional reforms to reach a new Treaty of European Union, while the Socialists all went for a pretext of "pragmatism", by which problems should be categorically solved, starting with the social problem.

Now, if it is true that the social dimension is fundamental in the development of the common policies of the EEC - to avoid the integration of the markets and the economy happening independently without a close connection with a guarantee of increasingly improved living and working conditions, with the commitment to reduce unemployment in the Community as a priority - is over ambitious to think that this could be achieved without a few basic clarifications on "who" will decide these politics and on "how" the increasingly important choices that the Community will have to take in the coming years will be decided upon.

The same is true for the so-called "Citizens' Europe" demanded by all: in order to have true "citizens" a democratic ensemble of rights and duties must be established and submitted to parliamentary control.

All this does not exist and if it does not exist, everything else is illusion, petty political beating about the bush.

The signs in the last week are not encouraging: in Madrid, Delors, President of the EEC Commission has made a bit of progress with his project of really achieving economic and monetary union, but even in this case the basic political knots have not been untied, as regards whether or not the twelve really agree to the institution of a Central Community bank and a single currency. On the political level, the different formulation of the programmes of the Socialists and the Christian Democrats have not prevented the two major groups of the Strasbourg Assembly from concluding a "pactum sceleris" to share the responsibility of President of the European Parliament, electing for the first half of the legislation, the Spanish Socialist Baron, and for the second half, the Christian Democrat, Klepsch.

The voice of the European Parliament would thus be given to two personalities lacking in authority and responsibility. A serious discussion meeting on the priority and the different implications on the theme of European Unity if there were any, was resolved with a calculation of boutiques and allotments.

We Radicals remain faithful to our approach, which has become the precise electoral mandate of at least on of the member States: immediately a project for a new treaty for the United States of Europe (already approved by the European Parliament in 1984) before 1990.

Precisely today, at this moment, this is being voted: it will be a measuring post of everyone's commitment starting, with the elected Italians on this basic objective. The other focus of our commitment must be the demand from various quarters for membership: there should not be a juxtaposition of the two blocks in the "common house", which is the basic intention of Gorbachev's strategy. To our mind, the motor of democracy in the greatest possible number of European countries must exist: for this reason, the Community, the United States of Europe, must be a credible model of democracy.

To help the countries of Central Europe gain greater political democracy, should mean being disposed to supplying a model of political integration, of economy, founded on a solid democratic basis, able to promote democracy and rights in all and in each of its associated partners.

How can we achieve all this, overcoming resistance, immobilism, and lack of imagination in many of the political leaders in the East too, in countries like Yugoslavia, for example? I believe that this is the crux of our debate at the moment, and of our common reflection.

THE FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND POLITICAL INITIATIVES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DEMOCRATISATION PROCESS IN COMMUNIST COUNTRIES

At the last Federal Council in Strasbourg, and then at the Budapest Congress, we tried to outline by means of our analyses, a strategy corresponding to the development of "perestrojka" and "glasnost".

The Budapest Congress was the first positive result of this strategy. I do not intend to repeat the considerations made to this effect in my reports on those two occasions.

I think we ought to stop short at confirming that if the Party is to go ahead, all the opportunities offered by the Soviet Government's and the other Eastern European governments' reformist policy should be seized, with an attitude of the constructive dialogue which must be typical of a political force inspired by the values and methods of non-violence.

This is why we addressed President Gorbachev, asking him to allow Evghenia Debranskaja - who, after Marco Pannella, was elected member of this Federal Council with the greatest number of votes - to be able to participate in an ordinary way in our work, and to allow some of our guests to participate at this time as observers, at the Federal Council.

I hope, as I write this report, that the letter has reached Gorbachev without delay, and will have a positive effect. It is absolutely obvious, in fact, that we intend to act in relation to the USSR, its Communist Party, its Government and institutions, just as we took action in Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia: as a force interested in any reform which would assure substantial and formal processes of democratisation and which intends to fight for the affirmation of human rights and every kind of social, cultural, national and ethnic freedom, within a framework which excludes any possibility of crisis, destabilisation or fragmentation of the actual Soviet Empire. We hope it will be capable of transformation into a free democratic federation of free peoples, able to live together and respect each other in the common context of a State of Rights, and supra-national and transnational institutions.

Possible lines of action are the following:

- we must take into account that the democratisation processes deriving from "perestrojka" or "glasnost" either makes progress and is integrated, or ends by being beaten within the Communist Party and overcome by a reaction; it would be an illusion and an error, to consider Hungary and Poland as islands within the Warsaw block;

- we must consequently: a) strengthen our presence in Hungary and Yugoslavia, and as far as possible, improve our relations with the Polish organisations and our possibilities to have contact and communication with our Polish members; b) to earn the possibility to be present and launch initiatives in the USRR, both for the Party and for its Soviet members; c) to redouble our actions in connection with our comrades and all democrats in Czechoslovakia and East Germany; d) to undertake serious and important non-violent action in Romania, against the policy of cultural genocide perpetrated by Ceaucescu's Government against the Romanian and Magyar populations dwelling in rural hamlets.

Essential both for our policy of human rights and to sustain the development of democratisation processes can and should be our role within the European Parliament and the EEC:

To substract all this from a generic programme, incapable of mobilising anything whatsoever, we must choose two or three significant initiatives to be encouraged in various countries. For example: a convention of all the Radical Members of the countries of Central and East Europe, with the participation of democratic Movements both from countries where they have recognition and from those where they are still forced to operate in a clandestine and illegal manner, to hold a transnational march along the "iron curtain" to take place in summer '90..

INITIATIVES TO AFFIRM AN ANTIPROHIBITIONIST POLICY IN THE FIELD OF DRUG ADDICTION

Naturally, I have not much to say on what I have described as the third terrain for Radical initiative: antiprohibitionism as regards drugs and drug addiction. This is a growing transnational political struggle for the institution of the IAL, which has been joined by famous and prestigious international personalities, and for the election to the European Parliament of Comrade Taradash, as the direct expression of an antiprohibitionist list.

We will discuss what is to be done. But I confess that, if we have succeeded in significantly increasing this position and this battle in the course of the last year even in a situation of grave organisational and financial difficulty for the Party, this will be much more possible now.

On the contrary, it has been impossible for us to return to our initiative on the North-South issue, on the issue of the international debt in developing countries, on the issue of extermination by hunger. And I do not see the forces and resources forthcoming to do this.

Another issue we find a real challenge, is the initiative for the great transnational ecological problems: those which threaten the very balance of the echo-system and which can obviously not be solved on the national level nor through the existing international structures and procedures.

It is certain that this cannot be delegated to the Green Movement. The Radical Party ought to offer the Green Movement its own capacity, proved on so many occasions, of being a political force that is capable of achieving concrete legislative and governmental objectives.

Here I have revealed a possible framework for initiative and political combat in the context of which a programme for the Party's activity and - probably - a limited and reduced framework as regards the potential of the political offer to which Radical imagination and creativity can give us access.

How are we to find the energy, the means, the resources, the political and organisational stance?

How are we to find available and willing people?

WHAT ARE THE DECISIONS TO BE MADE AND THE ACTIONS TO BE UNDERTAKEN IN THE PARTY'S PRESENT SITUATION?

To conclude, what can and must we do, in the face of this dilemma, this dramatic contradiction, this situation, these conditions?

Paolo Vigevano and myself asked ourselves the question, calmly and seriously, with great attention and commitment, whether the time had come to proceed to the liquidation of the Party that the motion planned: "The Congress delegates every statutory power to the First Secretary and the Treasurer, jointly with the President of the Party and the President of the Federal Council, as regards all decisions concerning the life and means of the Radical Party". In spite of and precisely because of the exceptional value and potential of our proposal, there were and are many reasons which could lead to this decision. I believe that up to now, I have stressed a fair amount of them - the others will be dealt with better, by Paolo. Hope, on other occasions, has given Radicals the force to take decisions and face virtually impossible circumstances, but in this case, it was - at least to my mind - prudence which prevented us from taking the step.

Prudence is a quality, indeed a virtue, which is essential in life, but it is even more so in politics: it is essential to think more than twice before blowing up the bridge.

Having said this, I have no answer for the questions just raised, if by "answer", proposals, faith, and practical, convincing solutions are implied.

Could I or should I have resigned? Should the Treasurer have done so too?

If personal reasons had prevailed, I could have, we could have done so on June 19, without anyone being able to object.

Today, if it is true, as it is true, that many facets of the situation recall the Jerusalem experience eight months ago, it is also true that the 35th Congress was held; and that with the approved motion, the Party not only noted its crisis, but also announced it with the force and drama of the arguments, terms and attitudes it adopted, and with the weight and authority of a Congress deliberation. What could or would resignations be able to add today? Nothing, absolutely nothing. It would not have been, or would not be, anything other than the escape from responsibilities.

Talking about responsibility, I should supply another element of evaluation which refers to the level, to the grade of preparation of this meeting, which is also, as we shall see, vastly inadequate.

The Federal Council nevertheless met, on the initiative of its President and First Secretary, to follow up the decisions taken in Rimini.

The Party is therefore gathered here with all its ranks, each with his own powers and responsibilities, including the two Presidents, the first Secretary and the Treasurer; as for the Secretariat, last year's members must be reconfirmed, or a new one must be ratified.

We therefore have five days to discuss and evaluate, to work and to force ourselves to find convincing replies, and if possible, adequate solutions. This is a political confrontation, and everyone has the right and the duty to intervene with rigour and determination, with no useless attitudes, with the "truth". Everyone must and can responsibly extract his own conclusions of personal political commitment and this is also valid for the First Secretary.

MY HYPOTHESES

Having said this, I can at this point advance only hypotheses, which do not have the force and the value of of the proposals of possible solutions, because I for one am aware of the possible gaps and margins of uncertainty. I hope they serve to open the debate and to encourage the confrontation and that both the one and the other may fill the gaps and resolve the uncertainties, or offer us alternative possibilities, better able to propose solutions which are convincing solutions.

The hypothesis to which I first draw your attention is that which arouses within me - as a member - the greatest interest and motivation. It gives greater credit to the acquired potential and to our will to be a transnational force already. Still, it is probable that it is too ambitious and is only a forward escape.

According to this hypothesis, we should first and foremost note that at the present time, the necessary conditions no longer exist to continue the Party's activity, as it is at the moment; as a result, the mechanism of the full powers of "First Secretary, Treasurer, President of the Party and President of the Federal Council" entrusting them with a last task, with no further point of return. In these new, different conditions, all the decision-making and executive responsibility are jointly entrusted to "the four" who should constitute appropriate working groups and assign them specific responsibilities for carrying out this last task.

However, in order to define the task, it must rely on determining a precise objective, on achieving it within a certain pre-established time limit; once the objective has been reached and put into practice, normal conditions are automatically re-established for all the statutory organs, starting, obviously, with the Congress. Otherwise, the failure to meet the objective leads just as automatically to the liquidation of the Party, without the possibility of recourse to any intermediate stages.

Personally, I do not believe in the efficacy today of numerical objectives: members and money par excellence! What matters is that the results should both be the consequence of the political initiative and its cause and origin.

It is evident that the basic problem stems from the definition of the objective and the option. It must be "tough", able to mobilise, sustain, nourish and orient the transnational initiative. It must also possess the vigour and determination which we have so far not been able to inspire. The action must be very broad and finalised and should propose its own self-financing for the initiative not only by enrolments but also by private contributions (individual or from firms, organisations national and otherwise), which have been been explicitly and publicly requested with great determination, and no remorse or timidity.

What objective? I have managed to invent one though of which I am uncertain as to whether it includes all the necessary requisites and needs: a gathering of 1.000 or 2.000 people from all over Europe and not only Europe, who with the support and participation of celebrities (e.g. who should as a precaution, sign a "manifesto" as a first step) and of important political forces (such as the Italian Communist Party) to meet in Moscow next spring for a conference on a chosen theme (true democracy" and United Europe, and this is only one example) to celebrate the Radical Party's 36th Congress or even a convention to constitute a new force to follow in the Party's tracks, gathering its "witnesses": This choice is up to "the four", on the basis of the progress and the evolution of the initiative.

With this objective, the initiative of undertaking and organisation should be able to make use of the proposals, to which moreover, I have already referred in the paragraph dedicated to the "Fight for Human Rights and in the political initiatives for the the development of the processes of democratisation in Communist countries" - also promoted by comrades who have worked in Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Poland, to whom we owe the report prepared for this Federal Council by Olivier dupuis and Lorenzo Strik Lievers, with an addition by Sandro Ottoni and Antonio Stango: I extend my warmest thanks to all of them.

What I have presented is a hypothesis which may not be convincing, and which may even lead to expected reservations. I am aware of this. If this were not the case, this would not have been a hypothesis, but a proposal. I nevertheless beg you to consider it carefully: perhaps it might even be possible to define an alternative objective, more forceful and convincing.

I still maintain that it would be possible to promote a second hypothesis, based on various assumptions and contrasting with the first.

In fact, the first hypothesis begins precisely with taking note of the situation concerning the Party's state such as it is. It does not consider it possible - in the time available - to assure a political and organisational attitude not only sufficiently adequate to meet the requirements, but such as to allow an ordered and productive progress of activities, and consequently set the liquidation of the Party in motion. (In other words, mainly the political and organisational stance). In this way the conversion process is interrupted and the divergence between political time and organisational time is annulled: "Hope", continuity, is entrusted only to political initiative and the achievement of the objective, with ways of operating which are not pre-ordained, guaranteed by the authority of "the four", and the political force of the "plenary powers" which together with the objective's validity can determine a movement able to unite the energy, good-will and availability capable of "self-government".

On the contrary, the second hypothesis starts with an evaluation which makes a general judgement of the Party's conditions as such, capable of assuring the continuity of its activities, and which is must not therefore trigger off the device of the "plenary powers", an assumption of the political guarantee essential to follow the course outlined in the preceding hypothesis.

On the basis of the considerations on the "state of the Party", it is noted that for continuity of activities, the priority is to reconstitute the political and organisational attitude of the Party, which, subjected to the effort of standing up to the extraordinary offer of initiative and political promotion in this latter period, has not only not advanced in the conversion, but has lost a good part of its former operational capacity.

This will lead to a phase of conceptual operational reflection, inevitably limited, directed at containing the divergence of time between the conversion process and political initiative, and to pragmatically overcoming the contradiction of having to be a transnational and transpartite party and still being conditioned by institutional presence.

The force of this hypothesis can be in the essence of its own limits, in the definition of a programme capable of being a succinct, circumscribed objective; time is lacking, resources are limited, energy depends on availability. The greater risk could be to undervalue the unknown.

On other occasions I have tried to express my conviction that we need to provide a response to the requirements demanded from the party in order to be transnational and transpartite, which is different from that given in the past, better constructed, able to operate in different forms, and different ways at different rhythms. Definitively, the project planned by the last meeting in Strasbourg, was also oriented along these lines, even if first and foremost it was dictated by the need to deal with the Party's state of crisis.

My suggestions are undoubtedly perhaps too questionable. I should have been more precise and definite, more convinced if I was to be convincing and at least I should have stirred up the debate and the confrontation.

All I have wanted in this report was to state that probably there are differences of opinion and values among us which remain unexpressed and unopposed, they - at least in perspective - can can no longer assume the form of simple differences but of definite divergences, which it will be more opportune to anticipate, opening discussion and debate amongst us if this is compatible with our urgent needs. But perhaps this is useless, because it may be too late.

The second hypothesis would need to give precedence and find solutions for the gaps which have been mentioned in very clear terms, in the Treasurer's report.

First and foremost, the organisation of editorial and written production; This includes the solution too of the problem of the directories, translations, urgency, regularity and the reliability of circulation.

The functionality and efficiency of the services depending on the Treasury constitute a not to be underestimated organisational aspect, which seems to me to need solutions just as urgently. Then come the problems concerning our presence "beyond Chiasso" (town in Switzerland, close to the Italian frontier), as we used to say until recently. Among these, those concerning the solutions which could be adopted in Brussels, as a result of the changes intervening with the presence of our comrades in the European Parliament: this is a highly topical subject then, Budapest and the commitment in the other countries of Central and East Europe as well as Hungary: the most efficient way to solve this problem requires a preliminary clarification - even on the basis of the reports of Olivier Dupuis and Lorenzo Strik Lievers, and the other comrades - of a more general political order, on the evolution of the situation in this area which is essential for us, focusing particularly on the Soviet Union. To my mind, we are

in a condition to do very little for the countries of Eastern Europe, other than to provide our support from Rome and Brussels of the commitment of the few comrades who live there and are presently devoting their activity to the Party.

Then there are two themes, antiprohibitionism and ecology, which in relation to to the initiatives assumed by our comrades in Italy on the occasion of the European elections, besides and before considering the possible terms of our initiative, should be the subject of their proposals and suggestions for a common evaluation of new projects and different relations to offer the Party's activities.

A further outstanding problem to be is the Party's relationship with those elected on the Radical lists in Italy and with the Radicals elected in the European Parliament; with the beginning of 1990, amongst other things the first half of legislation is being completed, and we should proceed with finding substitutes.

I have left two problems to the last, which are certainly among the most serious: the closure of Radio Radicale and the problem of enrolments in Italy. Considering them jointly, is perhaps in the present circumstances, the sole possibility we have and - it seems to me - that they also lend themselves to soliciting the engagement of other political forces and the enrolment of their leaders.

This is a sketch which could serve - in the event of an inclination for this second hypothesis - as the definition of a programme which, I repeat, must be precise, selective, and reduced, and which cannot therefore include the solution of all these problems.

This hypothesis implies a new Secretariat, more contained in number, and finalised as far as possible, composed of comrades disposed to working with responsibility and autonomy in the context of the programme. My opinion is that it would include competent comrades committed on the antiprohibitionist and ecological fronts.

As I have already said, because of some aspects, I feel this hypothesis would activate a temporary phase, necessarily with a limit, temporary, and experimental, in the attempt to fix a date for the Federal Council meeting by the autumn, (September-October). This meeting should be particularly well informed, and well prepared, and should be presented with a clear picture of the Party's situation and prospects. It should be as complete and conclusive possible, checked and confirmed on both conceptual and operational levels, so as to enable the evaluation which must necessarily lead either to the convocation of the 36th Congress or to the triggering of the Party's liquidation, an event which is always possible; the convocation of the Federal Council should not even be considered, if "the four" should come autonomously to such a conclusion.

The immediate step in the reorganisation of the centres for operations, services and activities, according to the priorities fixed by the programme, should be accompanied by a moment of reflection on our concepts, which could involve a joint meeting with both the Secretariat and the parliamentarians, with an invitation extended to other comrades according to the topic or topics on the agenda, a meeting to be held around the middle of September.

This time too I have gone on longer than I anticipated, and I have not succeeded in getting away from my own problematic character, my experience, my way of reflecting and thinking of how I am and of how I don't succeed in not being. I am sorry, but even this is an element of which you will have to be conscious and which you will have to evaluate.