Rita Bernardini interviewed Sergio Stanzani for Radical Radio. Here are some excerpts from that interview.

ABSTRACT: On the eve of the Radical Party's Federal Council meeting in Rome (September 1-5, 1989), First Secretary Sergio Stanzani indicates the questions which the PR will have to face and resolve in the process of being transformed into a trans-national and trans-party group.

(Notizie Radicali no. 175, of August 14, 1989)

Q. Is it possible for more debate on the trans-national and trans-party choice? Can there be any turning back?

A. Since the Bologna Congress where we decided not to run in Italian elections any more and to give birth to a suitable tool for replying politically to the problems of our times which - as we well know - have a trans-national dimension, the party has worked, acted and discovered the value of this choice.

In terms of political decisions, and hence not formal or juridical ones, a step has been taken which it would be hard to go back on.

But there is no doubt that since we are a lay party, even a decision of such importance is no dogma.

First the Budapest Congress, then our missing presence in the June 18 European elections left no doubt in the minds of those who said that this was not a decision but a stratagem, a screen for putting on a show. The only limitation is the capability of having and realising this political will; it is not a lack of conviction. (...)

Q. At the Federal Council meeting in Strasbourg you decided to embark on the road of continuity, placing an all-or-nothing bet. At the next Federal Council meeting the economic-financial question will be up for debate. Can the Radicals' continuity or lack of it, as we know it, be a factor?

A. In the report I will make to the coming FC (printed in the last number of NR, ed.) it will be shown that, consistent with the decisions we have made, the road we have followed has been that of continuity. We have followed the road of conversion, of modification, of changing the party as an instrument, of being a party as we have been for the last ten years without dissolving our continuity, without making any breaks. A difficult condition to be in, so much so that we haven't managed to come out of it successfully. Instinctively I ask myself if it isn't actually necessary for there to be a hiatus, a short break. To shut down the party that has established itself in the last ten years in order to see how to recompose it - this can be done in a very short time. To liquidate everything, and with the results of the liquidation perform a conscious act, to handle the choice of constituting the new party. The suggestions of Marco Pannella, repeated in the letter accompanying the report of the First Secretary an

d the Treasurer, propose once again the militant party of non-violence, of Franciscan poverty, the party as it has been, as it was, but it offers no solutions regarding means, tools, wealth and heritage to see if it is possible to use them in terms of organisation. (...)

I do not believe in returning to the past. Not even Marco Pannella could be the same man today that he was twenty years ago. The years have passed and have left no one unscathed, persons or party.

The calling back for the Radical Party as it was before it entered into the institutions might be useful for reconstructing something that certainly cannot be a repetition of what it was. (...)

Q. The membership is slightly more than 2,700. Self-financing is only one of the items of income and not even the most substantial one. Public financing will only be available for a few more months. How has the party managed to keep on its feet up to now?

A. For years we maintained that independent enterprises were a burden for a party that at that time was able to do without accepting public financing. Many Radicals pretend not to know that for years the party fought against public financing, and not only in Parliament. This much is true: the party did not use it to support the party as such but turned it over entirely to independent enterprises whose juridical status it distinctly, clearly and precisely defined. These enterprises were something "other" than the Radical Party, but many things have changed since then.

When I became Secretary, the party was using public financing to support itself. This is one of the changes we have had to recognise, and it is not the only one.

One of those independent enterprises, Radio Radicale, for a certain time, even if in a selective way, takes advertising and was obliged to become a party organ in order to have the right to use another source of public financing. (The legal subsidy for publishing provided for the broadcasting stations that are party organs, ed.)

This also changes things. Is Radical Radio today still an independent enterprise? Does the fact of being a party organ injure its independence, does it bind it, condition it?

The other independent enterprise, Teleroma 56 [a television station, ed.] was able to acquire its autonomy. This station, which could not have been "Tele Radicale" because the costs of a television station would have been prohibitive, gave us the most possible even of a directly political level without disfiguring Teleroma, one of the few stations with a specificity, an identity and a physiognomy of its own. In the field of television the autonomous enterprise grew and reached the point, under different forms, of being useful to the party. (...)

Q. What is the solution to the Radical Party's problems?

A. In the phase we are going through we must not only find the solutions but also the way to find them together; and without the contribution of those who have never been Radicals, but who understand that today it is necessary to become so, it will be extremely difficult to succeed in this intent. (...)