ABSTRACT: Held at the PCI main office in Roma, via delle Botteghe Oscure, on May 12 1990, the meeting between the General Secretary of the Partito Comunista Italiano, Achille Occhetto, and the Chief Secretary of the Partito Radicale, Sergio Stanzani, ends with a shared statement recognizing the common position about the European federalism and urging for regular and frequent consultations between the two parties. The PCI secretary expresses also "the wish that the PR will be quickly able to overcome the difficulties threatening its life with the responsible support by anyone appreciating the value of this party for our democracy."

"The two secretaries exchanged a wide range of opinions about the current political situation and the relationship between the PCI and the PR. They insisted on the need, and in some case of the urgency, to speed up common activities such as info-exchange, consultations and even actual and important initiatives.

On one hand, we have the specific and completely new characteristics of the Partito Radicale - trans-national and trans-party - rooted in the historical civil rights and non-violence movements; on the other, there is the growing importance and international commitment of PCI as a democratic force on the European level. Both these facts strongly suggest the need of frequent and regular consultations between the two parties.

The common position about the European federalism, deeply drawing from the Ventotene "Manifesto" by Ernesto Rossi (1) and Altiero Spinelli (2), and from the European antifascism by the Rosselli brothers (3), is currently based on the project of a new European Parliament Treaty for the constituency of the European Union. Therefore, mutual actions are timely - also due to the approaching elections - so to assure more strength inside the European Parliament toward the institutional and political unification of Europe.

The assertion of human, civil and political rights in the State of Rights and in political democracy - concerning both methods and contents - can get outburst and strength by the collaboration between the two parties and their activists on specific campaigns and goals.

The PCI secretary has also wished the PR to rapidly get out of the current difficulties threatening its life with the help of responsible support by anyone appreciating the value of this party for our democracy. The PR secretary has finally asserted his hope and belief that every democratic individual can understand and help the current PCI renewal, its goals for reforms and alternatives, as an essential contribution to overcome the great crisis and big problems of Italian society."

Translator's notes:

(1) ROSSI ERNESTO. (Caserta 1897 - Rome 1967). Italian journalist and politician. Leader of "Giustizia e Libertę", in 1930 he was arrested by the fascist regime and remained in prison or exiled until the end of the war. Author, together with Spinelli, of the "Manifesto di Ventotene", and leader of the European Federalist Movement and of the battle for a united Europe. Among the founders of the Radical Party. Essayist and journalist, from "Il Mondo" he promoted vehement campaigns against clerical interference in the political life, against economic trusts, industrial and agrarian protectionism, private and public concentrations of power, etc. His articles were collected in famous books ("I padroni del vapore", etc). After the dissolution of the Radical Party in 1962, and the consequent split from the editor of "Il Mondo", M.Pannunzio, he founded "L'Astrolabio", whence he continued his polemics. In his last years he joined the "new" radical party, with which in 1967 he launched the "Anticlerical Year".

(2) SPINELLI ALTIERO. ( Rome 1907 - 1982). Italian politician. During fascism, from 1929 to 1942, he was imprisoned as leader of the Italian Communist Youth. In 1942 co-author, with Ernesto Rossi, of the "Manifesto of Ventotene", which states that only a federal Europe can remove the return of fratricide wars in the European continent and give it back an international role. At the end of the war he founded, with Rossi, Eugenio Colorni and others, the European federalist Movement. After the crisis of the European Defence Community (1956), he became member of the European Commission, and followed the evolution of the Community structures. In 1979 he was elected member of the European Parliament on the ticket of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), becoming the directive mind in the realization of the draft treaty adopted by that parliament in 1984 and known as the "Spinelli Project".

(3) ROSSELLI CARLO. (Rome 1899 - Bagnoles de l'Orne, France 1937). Italian politician. An antifascist, together with Nenni he founded and directed the magazine "Quarto Stato" (1926). Exiled in Lipari (1927), whence he managed to escaped. In France he was among the founders of the movement "Giustizia e Libertę". In Spain he fought with the republicans in 1936. He was assassinated together with his brother (an historian) by members of the cagoule at the order of Italian secret services. Author of an outstanding work, "Socialismo liberale" (1928).