2. Biography
Altiero Spinelli (31 August 1907 – 23 May 1986) was an Italian political
theorist and a European federalist. Spinelli is referred to as one of the
"Founding Fathers of the European Union" due to his co-authorship of the
Ventotene Manifesto, his founding role in the European federalist movement,
his strong influence on the first few decades of post-World War II European
integration and, later, his role in re-launching the integration process in the
1980s. By the time of his death, he had been a Member of the European
Commission for six years, a Member of the European Parliament for ten years
right up until his death. The main building of the European Parliament in
Brussels is named after him. The 1987–1988 academic year at the College of
Europe was named in his honour.
3. Early life
Spinelli was born in Rome, and joined the Italian Communist
Party (PCI) at an early age in order to oppose the regime of
Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party. Following his entry
into radical journalism, he was arrested in 1927 and spent ten
years in prison and a further six in confinement. During the war
he was interned on the island of Ventotene (in the Gulf of
Gaeta) along with some eight hundred other political
opponents of the regime.[1] During those years, he broke with
the Italian Communist Party over Stalin's purges (resulting in
him being ostracised by many of the other prisoners), but
refused to compromise with the fascist regime, despite offers of
early release.
4. Ventotene Manifesto
In June 1941, well before the outcome of the war was safely predictable, Spinelli
and fellow prisoner Ernesto Rossi completed the Ventotene Manifesto, eventually
entitled Per un’Europa libera e unita ("Toward a Free and United Europe"), which
argued that, if the fight against the fascist powers was successful, it would be in
vain if it merely led to the re-establishment of the old European system of
sovereign nation-states in shifting alliances. This would inevitably lead to war
again. The document called for the establishment of a European federation by the
democratic powers after the war. Because of a need for secrecy and a lack of
proper materials at the time, the Manifesto was written on cigarette papers,
concealed in the false bottom of a tin box and smuggled to the mainland by
Ursula Hirschmann. It was then circulated through the Italian Resistance, and
was later adopted as the programme of the Movimento Federalista Europeo,
which Spinelli, Rossi and some 20 others established, as soon as they were able to
leave their internment camp. The founding meeting was held in clandestinity in
Milan on the 27/28 August 1943.
The Manifesto was widely circulated in other resistance movements towards the
end of the war. Resistance leaders from several countries met clandestinely in
Geneva in 1944, a meeting attended by Spinelli.
5. The Manifesto put forward proposals for creating a European
federation of states, the primary aim of which was to tie
European countries so closely together that they would no
longer be able to go to war with one another. As in many
European left-wing political circles, this sort of move towards
federalist ideas was argued as a reaction to the destructive
excesses of nationalism. The ideological underpinnings for a
united Europe can thus be traced to the hostility of
nationalism: "If a post war order is established in which each
State retains its complete national sovereignty, the basis for a
Third World War would still exist even after the Nazi attempt
to establish the domination of the German race in Europe has
been frustrated" (founding meeting of the MFE).
6. Federalist advocate
After the war, Spinelli, leading the federalist MFE, played a vanguard role in the
early episodes of European integration, criticising the small steps approach and the
dominance of intergovernmentalism, feeling even that the chance to unite Europe
had been missed as sovereign states were re-established without any common bond
other than the functionalist OEEC and the largely symbolic Council of Europe.
Even the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC) was felt to be
too sectoral. The MFE believed
governments alone would never
relinquish their national power
without popular pressure. They
advocated a European constituent
assembly to draft a European
Constitution.
7. This approach eventually had a response from governments when they set up the
"ad hoc assembly" of 1952–3. It was Spinelli who persuaded Italian Prime
Minister Alcide De Gasperi to insist in the negotiation of the European Defence
Community (EDC) treaty on a provision for a parliamentary assembly to draw up
plans for placing the EDC, the ECSC and any other development within a global
constitutional framework to "replace the present provisional organization" with
"a subsequent federal or confederal structure based on the principle of the
separation of powers and having, in particular, a two-chamber system of
representation". The Assembly was invited to submit its proposals within six
months of its constitutive meeting following the entry into force of the EDC
treaty. In fact, the Foreign Ministers, meeting three months after the signature of
the EDC treaty, invited the ECSC Assembly immediately to draft a "treaty
constituting a European Political Authority" without waiting for ratification of
the EDC Treaty.
Spinelli played a significant role in advising the drafting of the Assembly's
proposal for a European "Statute". However, the failure of France to ratify the
EDC treaty meant it was all to no immediate avail. Some of its ideas, however,
were taken up in subsequent events.
8. European politician
Following the crisis of the failure of the EDC, the "re-launch" under the Paul-Henri
Spaak committee, which led to the 1958 EEC Treaty. Spinelli, recognising that the
EEC institutions were the only real existing form of European integration, but still
considering that they were insufficient and that they lacked a democratic legitimacy,
embarked on a "long march through the institutions". In 1970, he was nominated by
the Italian government to be a member of the European Commission from 1970 to
1976, taking responsibility for industrial policy in order to develop European policies
in a new field.
Spinelli decided to run in the first direct elections to the European Parliament in
1979. He did so as an independent candidate on the list of the Italian Communist
Party, which by then had become a Eurocommunist party and was keen to have
prominent independent figures to stand on its list of candidates. He was elected and
used the position to urge the first elected parliament to use its democratic legitimacy
to propose a radical reform of the European Community, to transform it into a
democratic European state.
9. To this end, he began to gather like-
minded Members of the European
Parliament around him, taking care to
involve Members from different political
groups. An initial meeting at the "Crocodile"
restaurant in Strasbourg set up the
"Crocodile Club", which, once it was of
sufficient size, tabled a motion for
Parliament to set up a special committee
(eventually established in January 1982 as
the Committee on Institutional Affairs, with
Spinelli as General Rapporteur) to draft a
proposal for a new treaty on union.
The idea was that the European Parliament should act as a constituent
assembly, although Spinelli was prepared to make compromises on the way to secure
broad majorities behind the process. On 14 February 1984, the European Parliament
adopted his report and approved the Draft Treaty Establishing the European Union.
The decision was taken with 237 votes for and 31 against (43 abstentions).
10. Spinelli's project was soon buried by the governments of the member states.
However, it provided an impetus for the negotiations which led to Single
European Act of 1986 and the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. This happened with the
help of several National parliaments, which adopted resolutions approving the
Draft Treaty, and of French President François Mitterrand who, following a
meeting with Spinelli, came to the European Parliament to speak in favour of its
approach, thereby reversing France's policy (since Charles De Gaulle) of hostility
to anything but an intergovernmental approach to Europe. This momentum was
enough to obtain the support of a majority of national governments to trigger the
treaty revision procedure
