ABSTRACT: Answering the interviewer's questions, Boselli summarizes the history of the radical party, namely as far as the question of world hunger and the transnational evolution are concerned. He then recalls the role played in Italy, also through the Club Pannella (1) and the Radical Anti-Prohibitionist Coordination (CoRA) and lastly explains why the party chose to hold the assembly in Sofia.

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The Assembly of parliamentarians members of the transnational radical party, coming from Europe, Asia, America and Africa, will take place on 15 July in Sofia.

Q: Mr. Boselli, the transnational radical party has become well-known in Bulgaria, especially after 10 November 1989. Could you summarize who and why this unique political formation was created? How many are its members, from which countries, and what are its objectives and projects?

BOSELLI - The Radical Party originated in Italy in the fifties and for thirty years it played an important role in promoting human and civil rights. In the first half of the eighties, during the campaign against starvation, it become more and more evident that problems such as this or environmental problems could not be solved at the level of single nations and national political parties. Such analysis led to the creation of the first transnational party, which in 1992 dramatically increased its number of non-Italian members, especially in the countries of central and eastern Europe, which for the first time exceeded the number of Italian members; these never exceeded 3-4000, but this year a major self-financing campaign carried out in Italy increased this number tenfold, allowing the radical party to begin spread itself in other European countries and also in several African countries.

However, a large number of citizens must give the radical party the force to gain support in the country by joining and promoting memberships in their place of residence and creating radical groups and associations in every city. This is the condition without which the projects, reasons, and hopes advanced by the radicals cannot be achieved. Such aspirations in Bulgaria are for the moment expressed through parliamentary activity and in the gathering of signatures of MPs on the petitions promoted by the radical party and for the permanent institutionalization of the international court against war crimes and for the abolition of the death penalty by the Year 2000. Moreover, an initiative is under way, at the parliamentary level, to promote the creation of a trans-Balkan Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria-Romania-Moldavia railway route.

Q: How much space and what role does your party have in the socio-political life of your country?

BOSELLI - Being transnational, the Radical Party concentrates its activities on problems of global or at least European interest. Thus, in Italy it does nothing unlike what it does in other countries, promoting the same initiatives in all parliaments with the objective of obtaining on each topic similar resolutions in various countries, and possibly at the same time.

In Italy there are obviously more radical members and militants, and these are organized into theme associations; for instance, the Clubs Marco Pannella or the Radical Anti-Prohibitionist Coordination (CoRA), which have gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures to introduce referendums held last 18 April and which determined fundamental changes in the Italian political life, such as the abolition of the public financing of parties, or the reform of the electoral law in a majority sense, which is about to be introduced and which will cause a dramatic improvement in the political class and in the political system. This reform is no doubt the result of the commitment of the radicals in all parties and in particular thanks to Marco Pannella, one of the very few politicians not to be implicated in the corruption scandals that are finally bringing hundreds of MPs and party official under investigation.

Q: How did you get the idea of opening an office in Bulgaria? What were the reasons for such choice and what sort of activity do you carry out?

BOSELLI - Bulgaria occupies an extremely important geo-political position. Thus, we could not neglect carrying out activities there as we do in several other countries.

Our activities, which are based on a wide array of initiatives, have not yet found an outlet other than the institutional one: in the Bulgarian National Assembly we are gathering the signatures of the MPs on various petitions, mainly aimed at favouring a new world order and the strengthening of the international law, as well as regional initiatives on Balkanic scale aimed at favouring the growth of the countries that are economically weakest and their rapid integration into a European political federation which is very different from the current intergovernmental economic community, which is anti-democratic as well as blocked by the selfishness of the Twelve.

Q: Many representatives of openly conflicting political forces participated in the Rome Congress. Do you think joining the Radical Party can change the relations among politicians that are based on serious disagreements and even hostility?

BOSELLI - I believe so. The Rome Congress allowed the Bulgarian MPs of the most different political origin to sit together in an atmosphere of radical tolerance. Unfortunately not everyone fully appreciated that experience and some accuse us of being communists for the simple reason that we try to promote a dialogue also with the communists. The fear is that once again, as in Italy, the radical party could be the victim of intolerance while carrying out the useful function of eliminating ideological carriers.

Q: Why did the Radical party choose Bulgaria as the seat of the Assembly of Parliamentarians?

BOSELLI - For various reasons. First, because the answer in terms of memberships to the Radical party coming from the Bulgarian National Assembly were quantitatively and qualitatively among the most significant, and we could not neglect such interest.

But there is another, more technical, reason. Sofia is equipped with places that are suitable for this meeting, which require, among others, facilities capable of allowing top-level translations and simultaneous interpretation in eight languages. Sofia, with its excellent air connections, is half way between Moscow and Rome, the two locations where the number of members of the Radical Party is today the highest.

The Assembly will therefore take place here in Sofia at the Hotel Vitosha from Thursday 15 July to Sunday evening of 18 July.

Over 550 Mps from some forty different countries and members of more than eighty different national parties are now members of the Radical Party. Among them, Nobel Prize winners, including Mairead Corrigan and George Wald, some twenty ministers, as well as various personalities of the cultural, scientific, religious milieus. The Assembly of Parliamentarians and the General Council, the radical Party's deliberative organ, will meet in Sofia. At that moment we are counting the presence of some 400 people, of whom 350 parliamentarians and ministers.

Translator's notes

(1) PANNELLA MARCO. Pannella Giacinto, known as Marco. (Teramo 1930). Currently President of the Radical Party's Federal Council, which he is one of the founders of. At twenty national university representative of the Liberal Party, at twenty-two President of the UGI, the union of lay university students, at twenty-three President of the UNURI, national union of Italian university students. At twenty-four he advocates, in the context of the students' movement and of the Liberal party, the foundation of the new radical party, which arises in 1954 following the confluence of prestigious intellectuals and minor democratic political groups. He is active in the party, except for a period (1960-1963) in which he is correspondent for "Il Giorno" in Paris, where he established contacts with the Algerian resistance. Back in Italy, he commits himself to the reconstruction of the radical Party, dissolved by its leadership following the advent of the centre-left. Under his indisputable leadership, the party succeeds in

promoting (and winning) relevant civil rights battles, working for the introduction of divorce, conscientious objection, important reforms of family law, etc, in Italy. He struggles for the abrogation of the Concordat between Church and State. Arrested in Sofia in 1968 as he is demonstrating in defence of Czechoslovakia, which has been invaded by Stalin. He opens the party to the newly-born homosexual organizations (FUORI), promotes the formation of the first environmentalist groups. The new radical party organizes difficult campaigns, proposing several referendums (about twenty throughout the years) for the moralization of the country and of politics, against public funds to the parties, against nuclear plants, etc., but in particular for a deep renewal of the administration of justice. Because of these battles, all carried out with strictly nonviolent methods according to the Gandhian model - but Pannella's Gandhi is neither a mystic nor an ideologue; rather, an intransigent and yet flexible politician - h

e has been through trials which he has for the most part won. As of 1976, year in which he first runs for Parliament, he is always elected at the Chamber of Deputies, twice at the Senate, twice at the European Parliament. Several times candidates and local councillor in Rome, Naples, Trieste, Catania, where he carried out exemplary and demonstrative campaigns and initiatives. Whenever necessary, he has resorted to the weapon of the hunger strike, not only in Italy but also in Europe, in particular during the major campaign against world hunger, for which he mobilized one hundred Nobel laureates and preeminent personalities in the fields of science and culture in order to obtain a radical change in the management of the funds allotted to developing countries. On 30 September 1981 he obtains at the European parliament the passage of a resolution in this sense, and after it several other similar laws in the Italian and Belgian Parliament. In January 1987 he runs for President of the European Parliament, obtaini

ng 61 votes. Currently, as the radical party has pledged to no longer compete with its own lists in national elections, he is striving for the creation of a "transnational" cross-party, in view of a federal development of the United States of Europe and with the objective of promoting civil rights throughout the world.