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The Bruges Group:

Paper No. 25 

Godfather of the European Union: Altiero Spinelli

- Foreword by Sir Richard Body MP
- Overview
- Stalinist Spinelli Fights Mussolini
- A Revolutionary Prison
- Escape, to Plan for Peace
- In Secret
- Campaigning Begins
- Federalism Takes-off
- Spinelli Defeats Thatcher
- Victory In Sight
- Notes

Lindsay Jenkins:

EUROPEAN REFORM FORUM  

Third Plenary Session  

ORAL EVIDENCE ON DEMOCRACY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION SINCE 1945: THE LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE UNION  “WHO GOVERNS AND HOW?”

Mad Map to Leave Britain in Bits 

London Conference, The Queen, the Realms and Europe, 28 October 2006

 - Mad map to leave Britain in bits (The Sun, 2006)

Disappearing Britain, The EU and the Death of Local Government.

THE FEDERALIST:

"The Federalist was founded in 1959 by Mario Albertini toghether with a group of members of the Movimento Federalista Europeo and is now published in English and Italian. The review is based on the principles of federalism, on the rejection of any exclusive concept of the nation and on the hypothesis that the supranational era of the history of mankind has begun. The primary value The Federalist aims to serve is peace".

Notes
Year XXXII, 1990, Number 1 - Page 30    REFLECTIONS ON THE EUROPEAN COMMON HOME

The post-war period is finally over. The international order, which governed the world from the end of the Second World War, is undergoing an irreversible decline: a new era has begun in world politics, in which co-operation replaces antagonism and disarmament is taking the place of the arms race. And all this is due to the new Soviet strategic thinking, which has been at least partly accepted by the United States government. This new tendency has not been brought about by good will alone, but above all by necessity. The United States and the Soviet Union cannot continue to bear the cost of the arms race and military confrontation. The basis of this new tendency is the contradiction between the national dimensions of political power and the internationalization of the productive process.

On the one hand, interdependence reflects objective needs, which are vital for the survival of mankind: safety from the threat of nuclear war, protection of the environment, and the overcoming of the Third World’s underdevelopment. These global problems require a high level of cooperation in specific areas to solve common problems.

On the other hand, the sovereign state has become incapable of solving problems with an international dimension on its own. In consequence, countries are forced to co-operate. “Unite or perish”, said Aristide Briand in the period between the two wars, referring to the European nation-states. This saying is now applicable to the superpowers. The crisis of the sovereign state is, essentially, the root of the process of detente and co-operation, and is a preliminary to world unification.

Europe is the laboratory of this process.

Europe was the battleground of the two World Wars; Europe has the highest concentration of troops and armaments; Europe is the centre of gravity for the USSR-USA’s balance of power. Successful detente between East and West and successful international co-operation in Europe will have universal significance. Here the new model of reciprocal security (based on a non-offensive defence system) ought to show Europe’s ability to transcend the East-West conflict and to allow for the dismantling of the two blocs.

It was on European territory that interdependence and the crisis of the nation-state started off the process of nations uniting from the end of the Second World War on, and here that new institutions were tried out to control this process.

This process however is broader than the confines of the European continent, for it affects every part of the world where the state has not yet reached continental dimensions (Africa, the Arab world, Latin America, etc.). But the European Community is a model, because it has reached the most advanced stage of integration.

At the same time, the process of democratization, which is determining the change of political regime in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, exerts a strong influence on world politics. The contrast between communism and democracy is becoming obsolete, as is the East-West conflict, particularly that between Eastern and Western Europe.

While the prospect of the European Community’s transformation into an economic, monetary and political union is coming closer, a new and broader process of unification is starting. The design for a European Common Home, which includes the United States and the Soviet Union, opens up great new prospects: the possibility of overcoming the division between the two halves of Europe, of dismantling the iron curtain and the military blocs, and of experimenting with a new international order in Europe, based on a co-operative model of international relations.

The participation of the superpowers (and in particular of the United States, which are not a European country, and of the Soviet Union, which is a European and Asiatic power) is essential to a solid foundation for the European Common Home. The fact is that it is on them above all that the demilitarization of East-West relations depends (in other words the transformation of military blocs into political alliances); and this is the starting point for the development of Pan-European co-operation.

It has to be emphasized that disarmament is a precondition for economic co-operation. The analogy with European integration is instructive: the formation of a united economic zone came as a result of the end of military conflict, with American dominance over Western Europe. This means that the European Common Home will be above all the home of common security – the institutionalization of the Helsinki process. This is the reason why Japan is not included in the European Common Home: it is already disarmed, and has thus already satisfied the conditions for joining the new universal system of security. On the other hand, Japan’s participation is indispensable in formulating plans for the creation of a just international economic order.

Economic co-operation, which is necessary to create this new international order, could develop on the basis of the convergence of interests of the superpowers. Co-operation and integration will in the first place affect the EEC and Comecon. But the economies of the Eastern countries are not yet ready to compete on the world market. First, the Comecon has to become a free trading zone and to reform its structures along EEC lines, in order that it may integrate more closely. In a world in which large markets represent an indispensable condition for participation in a new phase of economic development, a national way to perestroika does not exist. The first objective to seek in this direction is establishing trade between Comecon countries at world prices, paid in hard currency. The Prime Minister of the Soviet Union has proposed introducing these new rules starting in 1991.

On the other hand, the EEC, to co-ordinate its own economic relations with Comecon within a global context and to facilitate reform and development in Eastern Europe, has proposed to institute a Bank for Reconstruction and Development. But there is no doubt that the European Monetary Union and the use of the Ecu as a common currency will constitute a decisive factor in favour of opening up the Comecon to the world market and creating the economic conditions for the construction of a European Common Home.

But with the end to the old international order conceived at Yalta there lurks a serious danger: the rebirth of nationalism.   

    As always happens in the transition from an old to a new political order, there are forces that want the wheel of history to turn back. The forces of nationalism are once more raising their head; they are at work everywhere, trying to exploit the space opened up by détente.  
   The Cold War and the antagonism between the east and west blocs represented a factor of cohesion between the alliances and between countries which no longer exists today. There is an analogy between the current situation and the period of the First World War, when multinational empires disintegrated and Europe fell into nationalistic anarchy. Today the most serious danger is represented by the break-up of the Warsaw Pact and of the multinational states, such as the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. The victory of nationalism would bring Europe once more into chaos – once more the old continent would be engulfed in bloody tragedy. 
   The epicentre of this potential earthquake is in Germany. The world watched and rejoiced as the Berlin Wall crumbled, but at the same time it follows with anxiety the dramatic evolution of events in this country and listens with troubled mind to the evermore numerous chorus of voices evoking the ghost of an inevitable German reunification. The problem is on the agenda and a solution cannot be postponed, for the new settlement of Germany is the keystone to the new world order which is arising in Europe. And this means that the question of Germany’s size and power, which upset the European balance of power and produced two world wars, once more comes to the fore. 

The creation of a large and powerful country at the centre of Europe could give West Germany the illusion of independence, which until now it has sought in European integration. A unified Germany could become an alternative to European unity. 
    If the principle of fusing the state with the nation is to prevail over the principle of multinational organization of countries and federalism, the unification of the two Germanies will be only the starting point of much broader claims over borders, which are destined to radically alter the map of Europe. In fact, in West Germany there have been ever more insistent calls for reintegration of the territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, which belong to Poland. 
   If nationalism prevails, we can be sure that other territorial claims will follow. Indeed, there are German communities in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Switzerland, France, Belgium, even in the Soviet Union, and an entire sovereign state, Austria, belongs to the “German nation”. 
   All this would lead to the disintegration of Europe. This threat would also affect the European Community: on the one hand, the weakened American dominance has not yet been replaced by a cohesion within the European Community strong enough to extirpate nationalism forever, while on the other hand, European unification is (and has always been conceived as such, from the very beginning) the only alternative to German militarism and nationalism. 
   The solution to the problem of German reunification does not lie in the fusion of the two Germanies and in the creation of a German nation-state. 
   For the moment inter-German relations can be regulated by the proposed “contractual community”, in other words the peaceful co-existence of two Germanies, bound by a confederal link in the economic  and monetary field, which could allow for the maintenance of present
borders and the respective alliances in the context of the construction of the European Common Home. 
   Naturally all this does not eliminate the question of the definitive structure of German reunification. If the past is to be overcome, however, priority must be given to European unification. The European Council of Heads of State and Government, which took place in Strasbourg 8^th-10^th December 1989, defined the reference framework for the process of German reunification: the European Community and the European Conference on Security and Co-operation. In the context of these two processes, German reunification will not be the result of dividing and setting countries up against one another, but the fruit of a process of integration and pacification. 
   Relations between the two Germanies could even become a model and stimulus for the entire process of rapprochement and integration between the two Europes. If in fact in the two Germanies the process of disarmament were to be speeded up and an agreement on the withdrawal of foreign troops were to be reached quickly, the conditions would be created for starting the process of economic integration, which would be facilitated by the fact that the GDR is already almost the thirteenth member of the EEC. With this in mind, Berlin, which was the symbol of the division of Europe, could become the capital of the European Common Home. [...]

     I now wish to consider the role of the European Community in building the European Common Home. 

The example of the European Community has strongly encouraged the change in Eastern Europe, serving as point of reference and pole of attraction. But strengthening the European Community and transforming it into a European Federation will extend Europe’s international influence. This represents the best help it can give to further the cause of perestroika. A European state could play a mediating role in a global system of states. It will be free from American dominance and become a bridge between East and West. It will not present itself as the antithesis of communism, but as the attempt to reconcile democracy and socialism. It can put a brake on the secessionist tendencies of the Warsaw Pact countries. It will become the living alternative to the nationalist model. It will show that nations can coexist peacefully in a federal context. Finally, it will offer a model for a federal reconstruction of the Soviet Union. 
   What lesson can be drawn from the revolutionary changes now taking place in Eastern Europe? We must strengthen our efforts to build political unity in Western Europe. The tendency towards disintegration in the Warsaw Pact must be met with the formation of a new political order based on international democracy.
NATO and the EC must not fall into the temptation of drawing political and strategic advantages from the changes taking place in the East, and above all they must firmly reject the idea of drawing Eastern Europe into their own political orbit. This would look like a challenge to the Warsaw Pact, and as such could threaten the whole process of reform in Eastern Europe. 
   On the contrary, the problem is the convergence of the two Europes. European unification is developing within the framework of many concentric circles. The hard core is composed of the twelve countries of the European Community, which is evolving into an economic, monetary and political union. It is divided between those countries committed to this objective and those against it, such as the United Kingdom. The second circle is composed of the six countries of EFTA, the free trade area with which the EEC is preparing, in view of the 1992 deadline, to renegotiate commercial relations, with the aim of creating a “European economic space”, within which goods, services, capital and people can move freely. It is well-known that some EFTA countries, like Austria and Norway, would like to enter the EEC – a wish that is shared by some non-EFTA countries, such as Turkey. 
   The third circle is formed by the Council of Europe, which now groups the twenty-three democratic countries of Western Europe, which co-operate in the field of defending human rights, culture and the environment. Today, this organization has a new dynamism: it is tending to promote the development of East-West relations and to open up its own institutions to East European countries which have begun the process of democratization. Some of these (Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia) have applied to join the Council of Europe, and even the Soviet Union, which already participates as an observer at the consultative Assembly with a delegation of parliamentary representatives, could soon become full members. 
   The fourth circle is formed by the thirty-five member countries of the European Conference on Security and Co-operation (otherwise known as the Helsinki process), which is to say Eastern and Western Europe, the Soviet Union, the United States and Canada. With the building of a new system of international relations based on mutual trust and designed to promote disarmament, a framework has been created for the development of East-West co-operation and the spread of democracy. This is the framework in which, according to Gorbachev, the division between the two halves of Europe may be overcome in the building of the European Common Home. 
   The prospective creation of a Federation of Western Europe, and of perestroika in Eastern Europe, show that Europe once more occupies a central position in world politics. Europe may become the starting point for a process of unification which involves the whole world, even though it is now limited to one continent, and for the model of a new world order based on international democracy. In other words, the European Common Home may be seen as the laboratory of world unification. 

The objective of the European Common Home does not constitute a secondary aspect of perestroika: on the contrary, it is a crucial element in defining the meaning of this political project. 
   Building the European Common Home represents the answer to a great historical challenge: to show that it is possible to overcome the rift, formed in Europe by the Russian Revolution, between the system of democratic countries with capitalist economies, and the system of socialist countries. 
   This process indicates a direction which does not involve negating the differences between the countries of East and West, but moves towards their gradual reduction. The influence which each system has had on the other was evident even from the period in which they lived isolated and divided by tension and hostility: particularly the penetration of elements of socialism into the fabric of Western European society. But today perestroika is without doubt an expression of the need to reform the socialist system on the basis of the principles of democracy and a market economy. 
   The bipolar logic of the opposing blocs made democracy coincide with capitalism and socialism with Stalinism, made it impossible to reconcile democracy and socialism, and closed the way for any intermediate position. 
   The project of creating ever closer forms of political co-existence between the two Europes will allow an unprecedented experiment to be carried out: the attempt to achieve the peaceful co-existence of countries with different economic and social systems, without depriving them of their autonomy, on the sole condition that they all have a market economy and democratic institutions. 
    At the same time, this project will represent a potent stimulus for the renewal of federalism and a challenge to its capacity to face the new problems of the contemporary world: the creation of a new developmental model, based on global and articulated planning, on participatory democracy, on harmony with nature, as an answer not only to the specific problems of each system, such as the crisis of so-called real socialism, or the crisis of western democracy and the welfare state, but also to common problems, such as the building of world peace, the protection of the environment and aid for development. It is difficult to foresee the course that will be taken by the process of Pan-European integration. Nevertheless, my last reflection will concern this issue. 
    The more general framework of this process is, as we have seen, the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe. It is probable that the development of the Helsinki process will produce the institution a confederation – necessary to create ever closer political and economic links between Eastern and Western Europe. This result could be reached by the institution, together with the Council of Ministers, of a Parliamentary Assembly, consisting of parliamentary representatives from all Europe, the Soviet Union and North America. Free elections in Eastern Europe make this experiment fully practicable. 
   On the other hand, because of its interregional dimensions, the European Common Home will be undermined by a double contradiction. In fact it is at the same time too big and too small. I have already shown that it will be too small to manage global problems. Consequently, it will develop a tendency towards world unity. But it will also be too big to become a regional pillar of a world federation. It is more likely that the United States will become a member of a Pan-American federation, including Latin America, while it is foreseeable that Western Europe and Eastern Europe will federate with the Soviet Union. 
   The institution in the context of which the federative Pan-European process can take shape will be the Council of Europe. I suggest this hypothesis not because I believe in the federal potential of this organization, for in reality it is the weakest of European institutions, but because it is the most suited to starting the process of co-operation. Gorbachev has realized this, as his historic speech made to the Council of Europe on 6^th July 1989 proves. After all, did not the integration of Western Europe begin forty years ago within this very organization? 
   The signing of the European Convention on Human Rights, which constitutes the most important achievement of the Council of Europe, would give the newborn democracies of Eastern Europe an international guarantee. Seen in this light, these countries’ membership of the Council of Europe may be viewed as a means of consolidating democracy in Eastern Europe. 
   On the other hand, the aim of the European Common Home is a fundamental element in defining perestroika. The fact is that democracy and human rights are not only the common values which allow the countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to unite with Western Europe in a common organization. They are also a political precondition and a first step on the way towards building a Pan-European Federation.

Lucio Levi

 Editorials  
Year XXXVIII, 1996, Number 1 - Page 3    Should the construction of Europe fail

From its outset, the European unification process has experienced a series of crises, ranging from the collapse of the EDC project, to de Gaulle’s "empty seat" policy which was ended by the Luxembourg compromise, to the failure to adopt the Draft Treaty approved by the European Parliament as a result of Altiero Spinelli’s action. Each of these crises has been followed by a period marked by stagnation and a lack of direction. Yet after each hiatus the process has been re-animated by setting short-term objectives which, although less ambitious than the projects which initially brought about the crisis, never lost sight of the general direction of the unification process and its ultimate destination. In this way, the European Economic Community was created from the ashes of the EDC, out of the policy of the "empty chair" came the agreement regarding the financing of the common agricultural policy, the Community’ s own resources and the European Parliament’ s budgetary powers, and out of the failure of Spinelli’s Draft Treaty was born the European Single Act. The reality is that Europe’s states have been carried along for forty years by a current which, despite pauses and setbacks, has advanced toward ever-closer integration by guaranteeing a stable reference point for the expectations of citizens and for the decisions of political forces. 
   European integration has been driven by the process of globalisation, which destroys everywhere and with increasing momentum the barriers that hinder the circulation of information, capital, goods and people. It is making the national dimension of the state obsolete throughout the world, and is creating also in other regions of the world groups of states that are being set up with the aim of creating regional markets sufficiently large to enable them to compete successfully in the great single global market. 
   This imperative gave rise to and pushed forward the European integration process prior to and to a greater extent than any other similar process which has manifested itself elsewhere, since the national state experienced its historic rise and fall in Europe before the other regions of the world and demonstrated, through fascism and the Second World War, the tragic consequences of its ever more evident incapacity to guarantee within its own borders free and secure civil co-habitation and balanced economic and social progress. 
   Yet the European integration process has dragged on for half a century without reaching federal unification. This has happened because, apart from some temporary and ephemeral outbursts, the interest to conserve national sovereignty has obscured the awareness of the need to overcome it in the minds of European politicians. [...]

Yet after the end of the Cold War and Gorbachev’s fall the situation is changed. Today, the American protective umbrella no longer exists, the hopes that world unification will be achieved in the near future have dissipated and the fundamental political problems which were left unresolved must now be confronted without delay. An opportunity to do so is presented by the deadlines of 1996 to 1999 (Intergovernmental Conference and the beginning of the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union), on which occasions the European governments will have to come to terms with the problem of creating, by means of the single currency, a democratic and federal institutional structure and a common defence, a new European political framework which will provide an alternative to the one America has now ceased to guarantee. Should this great historic opportunity not be taken advantage of, the movement of long duration which has so far led Europe toward forms of ever-closer union could change direction definitively. What is at stake over the next few years therefore is the continuation or otherwise of the European unification process.
   Mitterrand, in his valedictory address to the European Parliament, and Kohl, on repeated occasions, have posed the problem of the political unity of Europe as a problem of peace and war. The dramatic nature of their warning has not been understood. On the other hand, the prospect of war in Europe, after fifty years of peace, sounds unlikely. Yet it must be reconsidered in the context (which is entirely realistic) of a world in which war is nevertheless a recurring fact and of a Europe which would have departed from the path of unity and which would no longer be oriented by a solid alliance with the United States in the context of a rigid but stable world balance. In this context the conflicts which are external to Europe (above all those which will be carried out on its borders) would inevitably involve the great European states, and these will line up on opposing fronts, according to the demands of their raison d’état, as has already happened in ex-Yugoslavia. Certainly, in an initial stage, European soil would probably be spared actual military conflict, if it is true that wars are always fought in the weakest and most unstable regions of the planet where there exists a power vacuum. Yet a divided Europe in an anarchic world would be destined to become itself a weak and unstable region, in which the national powers would be de-legitimised and fragmented. In this situation the conflicts born outside Europe would easily spread to Europe itself, and others could arise inside Europe. The greatest of the benefits which Europeans have enjoyed for half a century thanks to the integration process, peace, would be lost. [...]

On these developments will depend the future of the UN. If it is supported by the co-operation of a restricted number of great regional federations of states that are democratic and aware of their world responsibilities, the UN will be able to carry out an effective action of peace-keeping and peace-enforcing, confront with success the great environmental challenges of the planet, launch itself toward its own democratisation and, in the longer term, acquire a monopoly of the detention of nuclear arms and of the development of the technology necessary to guarantee their security. In short, it would assume the function of a real and effective world government. Conversely, the UN will be condemned to impotence and will leave the world prey to disorder should it remain the screen for the sole weak leadership of the US.

If Europe’s governments are able to impose in Europe the reasons of federalism against those of nationalism, the forces for unity will prevail over those toward disintegration also at the world level, by giving concrete form and visibility to the perspective of establishing perpetual peace. If they are unable to do this, the threat of a new, long and dark period of disorder and war will descend on the world.

Having surveyed the most probable consequences of an interruption of the European unification process, we must ask what are the circumstances that, if verified, would allow us to determine whether the historic opportunity Europe is today presented with will have been seized or else definitively lost. In reality, identifying right now the specific event which would signal the point of no return of the crisis seems impossible. In the coming years, Europe will have to face the problems of the currency, institutional reform, the re-financing of the Community budget, enlargement and defence. These problems will tend to blend together into a single great permanent negotiation, in the course of which priorities will be alternated and alliances will, at least in part, be modified. There will be moments of serious tension and of stagnation. Yet no defeat on a single objective will lead of itself to the end of the process, even if the date of 1st January 1999 which has been set for the start of the third stage of economic and monetary union will be crucial. A serious crisis could induce the governments most deeply involved in the process to gain an increasingly clear awareness of the nature of the interests at stake, encourage the creation and consolidation of opposing groups and progressively reinforce their European will.

The outcome of the entire matter will nevertheless depend on whether the governments which today are aware of the need for a European currency and the greater effectiveness and democracy of the Union’s institutions are able to go to the very heart of the matter, deriving from this awareness the consequence that these objectives can be reached only through the creation of a federal-type state framework. Furthermore, it will depend on whether (given, as today seems certain, it prove impossible to obtain from the governments currently opposed to any significant cession of sovereignty their agreement to a federal project) the others show the necessary clarity of thought and determination to proceed alone. This evolution will require time. Yet the moment will arrive when it will be clear to all whether the challenge has been successfully overcome or not. Probably only in the early years of the third millennium will it be possible to establish beyond reasonable doubt whether the European unification process should be considered as having failed or whether it will be destined to continue.

All predictions concerning the future course of history must be accompanied by an awareness of their inherent uncertainty. For this reason, it can not be excluded that the scenario outlined here be revealed incorrect and that the possible failure of the projects whose fate will be decided in the coming years will not lead to the end of the European unification process. It may be that the future will show that the interdependence acquired over fifty years of integration, although not consolidated by federal institutions, will be sufficiently strong to survive a change in the international context. In this case the perspective of the political unification of Europe will remain in play for an indefinite period of time, which will allow it to overcome other serious crises, to keep alive the hopes of citizens, to guide the decisions of politicians and to preserve peace, prosperity and democracy, even if in a generally more difficult context. Maybe. Yet this would mean that the European integration process is by now irreversible, that is, that the political unification of Europe as regards its essential aspects has already been accomplished, even if no-one is yet aware of it. [...]

Those who seek to be actors in the historic process and to pursue the goal of improving the conditions of human co-habitation must believe that reason is destined, in the long term, to prevail. Moreover, this is an attitude which, if it has its foundation in the need to give a sense to one’s own civil commitment by rooting it in an idea of the historic process which finds in reason its ultimate driving force, is also backed up by the observation of actual history which, despite its tumultuous and tragic nature, has produced over the millennia the enlargement of the framework of peaceful and democratic co-habitation among people, from the Greek city-state to the American continental federation. Yet reason is destined to prevail only in the long term. This means that a possible historic crisis of the European unification process, and, above and beyond this, that of world unification, would not mean it will be impossible for the process to be started again in the future. It does mean however that a long period of the obscuring of reason could push Europe to the margins of history and impoverish drastically the quality of our material and spiritual life for one or more generations. It is not sufficient in order to exorcise this danger to resort to the idea of the unstoppable advance of the process of increasing interdependence among peoples. It should not be forgotten that the same impulse to increase interdependence which was at the origin of the European unification process provoked, in the preceding period, fascism and two world wars, and that the start of the European unification process itself would not have been possible without the horror with which people reacted to the experience of oppression and war. What re-awoke reason (even if only partly) in the post-war period was the tragic observation of the terrible effects of its lethargy. Yet with the passing of the decades the memory of those events is fading. And in order today to give force once again to reason, it is necessary, albeit while maintaining firm the reference to the past, to turn our attention to the future and to try and make understood the horrors which could come to pass within a few years should Europe’s leaders prove unable to meet their historic responsibilities and should they lack the necessary clarity of thought and courage to begin, by uniting Europe, the federal stage of world history.

 The Federalist

Notes
Year XLVI, 2004, Number 2, Page 99   THE AIMS OF EUROPEAN FOREIGN POLICY AND THE FEATURES OF EUROPE’S DEFENCE SYSTEM  *

   This analysis is broken down into three parts: first, we identify world unification as the only concept on which a valid EU foreign policy can be based; second, we see that the premise for the effective start of a policy of world unification is the full federalisation of the EU, which implies the overcoming of the fundamental obstacle that is the international monopolar system and its replacement with a multipolar system of cooperation. Finally, we look at the main features of the EU’s defence system, which are clearly subordinate to the aims of European foreign policy.

1. The EU is a community of democratic states committed to the construction of a supranational democratic system, that is (as stated by the Schuman Declaration, even though there is strong opposition to the achievement of the ultimate goal), a federation. In the light of this defining quality — democracy — the concept inspiring EU foreign policy can be summarised in an expression used by Woodrow Wilson (and in substance repeated by Roosevelt in 1941) to clarify why the USA had entered the First World War: “to make the world safe for democracy”.

This sentence means essentially three things: 1) that the aim of foreign policy is, generally speaking, to guarantee security in the presence of external threats; 2) that the security of a democratic state relies on the presence of an international system that favours the preservation and development of the democratic system; 3) that there exists a need not to only to fight anti-democratic and aggressive states, but also, beyond that, to favour an international situation that is characterised by a reduction (if not an absence) of violence — given that, objectively, violence leads to a sacrificing of liberty in favour of security — and also propitious to economic growth (a condition fundamental to democratic progress).

That said, we must clarify what “making the world safe for democracy” means in the present historical situation. What exactly is this situation? What are the problems to be faced? Wishing to sum up extremely briefly the current world situation, an expression coined by Ulrich Beck, according to whom we are living in the “risk society”, seems to me to be particularly apt and illuminating.

The risk society is the transnational global society that has grown up on the basis of an increasingly profound interdependence prompted by the advanced industrial revolution and its transition to the post-industrial or scientific mode of production. The globalised world is the enduring historical context in which we live and it is a world characterised by marked contradictions.

On the one hand, there exists enormous potential for economic, social and democratic progress for the whole of mankind. On the other, we are confronted with existential challenges, whose combined effect is to call into question not just the progress of mankind, but also its very survival; there can also be no doubt that, dramatically, these challenges also represent threats to the whole democratic way of life. Here, I attempt to sum up briefly the three most important of these challenges, as they are the key components of the security problem of our age.

The first challenge derives from the existence of global social and economic interdependence in the absence of global government. It is clear that the wealth of the advanced countries and the prospects of progress for all the peoples of the world are based on this interdependence. But equally evident are the enormous contradictions that this situation generates: a) severe financial and economic crises that prevent economic growth; b) the fact that just 20 percent of the world population has at its disposal 80 percent of world resources; this is clearly the determinant that fuels international terrorism: in a world that is (with regard to trade, production, information and human mobility) increasingly integrated, it is a huge anomaly that is bound to generate fanatic hatred on a large scale, nihilism, religious fundamentalism, despotism and international adventurism — in short a climate in which terrorist networks thrive; c) today’s human mobility and unprecedented levels of emigration are producing a growing spread of organised crime and also of epidemics.

The second challenge is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Now that the bipolar era is over, the need to guard against the possibility of wars between superpowers is no longer the central security issue. The crucial challenge has become that of containing a global instability that has its roots both in the phenomenon of globalisation in the absence of global government and in the loss of the stabilising effect of the bipolar order. The new international situation favours — in particular through international terrorism and states on the brink of collapse — the proliferation of WMDs, but, unlike the Cold War era, the balance of terror cannot serve as an efficient deterrent, as such a balance presupposes states with fixed territories that can be destroyed.

The third challenge is the threat of an ecological holocaust, which is so evident that it does not warrant further comment here.

In this global situation, “making the world safe for democracy” means finding valid responses to the above-mentioned existential challenges. And since the main feature of all the challenges that characterise today’s risk society is the existence of a global society in the absence of global government, a policy of world unification can be the only valid response. This policy must take, as its guiding principle, the grand design — of historical import — of a global federation: a federation based, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, on a system of continental federations, national states, regions and local communities. The federation is, in fact, the only institutional system capable of achieving democratic government of interdependence. That said, it is necessary to look at the concrete routes that the policy of world unification must follow. There are, basically, two such routes and they are closely related.

The first route is that of regional integration. Essentially this means exporting Europe’s integration experience to Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South-east Asia, and Latin America, in order to pacify areas where there is conflict (thereby drastically limiting authoritarian tendencies and military expenditure) and to form transnational economic systems that, no longer forced to act as small, individual states, are infinitely better equipped for economic growth and defence.

In a broader sense, this is an undertaking that must also embrace a strong policy for the stabilisation and democratisation of states that already have continental dimensions (like Russia, China and India), but that certainly do not qualify as democratic supranational communities. In short, if it is accepted that European integration (strongly supported by American policy in its early days) is a grand experiment — incomplete, but nevertheless highly instructive — in state-building, or better in the building of the democratic state, then today the time has come to extend this experience. This means taking real steps towards a more progressive and peaceful world and at the same time building the fundamental pillars of the future world federation.

The second fundamental route that the policy of world unification must follow is that of the reconstruction and strengthening of global governance. On one hand, there are enormous problems that must be faced at global level: devastating economic, financial and monetary instability; intolerable injustices and imbalances generated by globalisation; international terrorism; proliferation of WMDs; violent conflicts; ecological emergencies; transnational crime. On the other hand, it is not yet possible to achieve, globally, the close level of transnational integration that can be achieved on a regional level, where closer interdependence, proximity, and cultural affinities render possible, if nevertheless difficult, the construction of supranational institutions that have a federal vocation. This is not to say, however, that it is not both necessary and possible, at global level, to achieve global governance by introducing instruments better equipped to tackle global issues, and above all by institutionalising a substantial transfer of resources from rich countries to poor ones, thereby overcoming the destructive tendency to entrust the market with the task of solving the imbalances of today’s globalised world.

The two routes that the policy of world unification must follow are organically linked and thus reinforce one another. This link emerges particularly clearly in the debate over the need to reform the UN Security Council. The only way of strengthening and democratising this institution is through its regionalisation: the UN Security Council should be made up of the existing continental states and of the institutional expressions of regional processes of integration in the world, starting with the EU of course.

2. The full federalisation of the EU is the premise for the effective start of a policy of world unification.

In order to grasp this point fully it is necessary to understand that the world’s large democratic states are the only political subjects able to implement this policy. First of all, these states have a particularly vital interest in promoting world unification, because the existential challenges confronting mankind are also very real threats to the survival of the democratic system. Indeed, in a world that is moving towards a heightening and generalisation of hostilities and that has no perceptible way out of this situation, democracy is bound to perish. Second, only the world’s large democratic states have the material resources (economy, technology and capacity for global action) needed for the construction of international democracy, and, likewise, the necessary ethical-political resources: only the democratic system, which is founded on constitutional limitation of power, can accept the consensual limitation of power at international level. Another important feature of the democratic states is that they are home to the strongest and most widespread movements for peace and supranational solidarity, movements that can put crucial pressure on democratic governments to move in the direction of federalism.

That clarified, we must also appreciate that the existing balance of world power hinders the launching, by the democratic states, of an effective policy of world unification. Today, there exists only one large democratic state fully capable of implementing a grand strategy on a global scale: the United States of America. But, even though this state has a vested interest in promoting world unification, its objective power situation constitutes an enormous obstacle to its readiness to accept the costs inherent in such a policy. There are large economic costs, given that what is needed is an extension, globally, of the logic of the Marshall Plan, which means the provision of economic aid on a large scale (linked to important aid on a security level) in exchange for an area’s opting for pacification-integration and democratisation. And there are also considerable costs in terms of the reductions of sovereignty that are necessary in order to construct a global institutional system, which, despite being bound, for some time, to have a confederal physiognomy, would nevertheless introduce a genuine multilateral, rather than hegemonic, decision-making system.

Two basic factors prevent the USA from accepting these costs.

First, America occupies a hegemonic position in the current world order. This hegemony leaves it shouldering, practically alone, the huge responsibility of guaranteeing world security, and at the same time encourages the spread of an imperialist mentality throughout American society and the American governing class, a kind of power vertigo that, according to Ludwig Dehio, has characterised all the powers that, throughout history, have risen to such levels of pre-eminence. Obviously, against this background, there cannot be said to exist within the USA (which must, let it not be forgotten, be attributed the great historical merit of defeating fascist totalitarianism, the hegemonic ambitions of Germany, and subsequently Soviet/communist totalitarianism, and which also has a vested interest in a policy of world unification) the political or psychological conditions that would allow it to accept the costs — in terms of restrictions on its absolute sovereignty and a reduction of the current unbridled consumerism — that such a policy would entail.

Second, the USA, even though it has clear political and military pre-eminence, no longer enjoys the dominant economic position that it did in the 1940s and ’50s and that allowed it to finance the Marshall Plan and to take on the costs of governing the world economy. This relative decline of the American economy has been reflected in its decision to base the stability and development of the world economy on market forces (progressive liberalisation of capital flows, financial deregulation, progressive reduction of government economic intervention). This was justified through the imposition, on the world’s main financial and trade organisations, of the free-market ideology, which in reality meant the rest of the world having to finance American power.

In the light of this, it is possible to see the objective basis of the current American strategy, and thus to appreciate that it cannot be viewed essentially as a specific choice on the part of the Bush administration. In reality, in today’s increasingly interdependent world, which has become a community of destiny, the problem of world unification is a real challenge that demands a response, and the USA is prompted by its power situation to respond to this challenge with a deliberate policy of stable global hegemony, rather than a policy of world unification. This strategy is implemented, in particular, through systematic unilateralism — as demonstrated clearly by the United States’ rejection of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and of the Kyoto Protocol, and its delegitimisation of the UN —, through military supremacy (which implies massive rearmament), and through a policy of preventive war (witness Iraq).

This strategy, which is bound to produce less and not more (as claimed) stability, shows certain analogies — acknowledging, of course, that the USA is a democracy and that in the atomic age general wars have become inconceivable — with the strategy of the European powers in the first half of the twentieth century. In that era, the challenge confronting the larger European states was the decline of the nation-state — the Industrial Revolution had created a need for states of continental dimensions — but being still powerful, they were not ready to accept the reductions of their sovereignty on which a process of consensual unification depended. In this situation, faced with a stark choice: “empire or federation”, the European powers opted for imperial expansion, which of course culminated in the German attempt at hegemonic unification of Europe.

Having considered the American situation, let us now take a look at Europe’s position. The EU is a large community of democratic states, whose deep-seated interest in promoting world unification is reflected in a tangible trend in this direction. The main manifestations of this trend are: strong support for the ICC and Kyoto Protocol; widespread support for a strengthening of the UN; a policy that favours regional integrations; the fact that the EU and its member states are the leading contributors of development aid; the fact that the largest movements for peace and global solidarity are based in Europe; the document presented by CFSP High Representative Javier Solana to the European Council in Thessaloniki (June 2003), entitled “A safe Europe in a better world”, which outlines the role, as guide, that Europe could play in the world.

It must also be underlined that Europe’s vocation for a policy of global unification is deeply rooted in its lack of an imperialist syndrome; after all, the process of European unification was born of the catastrophic effects of power politics and founded on the experience of limitations of sovereignty, and this naturally gives rise to an inclination to export this experience.

This clarified, it is, on the other hand, clear that the EU, due to its incomplete federalisation, is incapable of transforming this natural vocation into an effective and systematic strategy of world unification. Full federalisation means: transfer of foreign policy (including development aid) and defence to a democratic supranational body (i.e., the Commission provided, under the control of the European Parliament and Chamber of States, with the power to construct a single diplomatic service and a single army); supranational power of taxation, in order to fund an adequate European budget; the elimination of national rights of veto on questions of constitutional reform.

Complete federalisation of the EU would have two consequences, fundamental and inter-related. On the one hand, the EU would acquire the instruments allowing it to be an effective actor on the international stage. This is demonstrated by the effectiveness of the Union’s action in various sectors (currency, competition policy, trade) in which it is not impeded by national rights of veto.

On the other hand, a fully federalised EU would decisively alter the global equilibrium, as it would be an entity with the capacity to offset American power, and its presence would mean an end to the situation that currently prevents the more advanced countries from finding adequate responses to the challenges of the twenty-first century. In short, it would mark the passage from unipolarism to pluripolarism, since this offsetting of American power would also allow China, India, Russia, Japan and other powers to exert more influence on world affairs. The pluripolar system of the twenty-first century, unlike that of past centuries, would be a cooperative multipolar system because, objectively, the existence of the global risk society acts as a stimulus for cooperation, for the survival of all. In the final analysis, it comes down to a choice: unite or perish.

In this situation, a federalised Europe would have the capacity to do more than simply initiate a strong policy for world unification; by bringing an end to America’s exclusive hegemony (and its attendant burdens, temptations and hubris), it would also have the capacity to involve the USA in this policy — to convince America to abandon unilateralism, which after all depends on the existence of a one-sided global equilibrium. A balanced partnership between the EU and the USA would, in short, act as the core and the driving force of a policy of world unification.

Here, a comparison with European-American relations in the 1940s may, once again, be useful. In that period, the USA brought to an end the central role, in the world equilibrium, of the European system of states, and thereby paved the way for the start of the process of European unification, which saw integration emerging as a concrete alternative to power politics. Today, a Europe fully federalised through consensual unification, and not through war, would counterbalance America’s power, and thus make a vital contribution to America’s own transition from power politics to multilateralism and consensual unification on a global scale.

3. Within this framework, it is necessary to clarify the main features of Europe’s defence system.

Let us begin by considering the concept that inspires European defence policy. Today (in the global risk society, in which traditional defence policies are becoming obsolete), the fundamental task facing us, on a security level, is that of contributing to the construction of an effective international police force, conceived as an instrument of state building, which must clearly be supported by development aid, by the creation of an efficient administration, and so on. It follows, of course, that the creation of a single European army would strengthen the UN, which must have Europe’s security forces at its disposal. This choice must be reflected in a formal and solemn commitment, made through the inclusion of an article in the European constitution (similar to article 11 in the Italian constitution), which not only identifies peace as the ultimate aim of the European federation’s international policy, but also specifies its readiness to limit its own sovereignty in favour of the UN and the availability of its armed forces for crisis management and the purposes of international policing.

This concept of European defence (European defence as a stage in the creation of an international policing system) has several very clear implications: rapid mobility, the capacity for long-term stationing of forces in hot spots such as the Middle East and Africa (always in the context of a policy of regional integration), and organic integration with the action of peace corps. In this regard, the introduction of compulsory civilian service (which could be carried out at local, national or supranational level) would be a crucial aspect of Europe’s role in the world.

A European foreign and defence policy would have to be accompanied by serious strategy not just against the proliferation of WMDs, but indeed for their elimination. This would, crucially, require a commitment (written in the constitution) to transfer these weapons: in short, the European Federation would, under the control of the UN (through a re-launch of the Baruch Plan), inherit WMDs from the national armies. An issue frequently raised in the debate on European defence is that of its enormous costs and thus of its incompatibility with the European welfare state. These arguments fail to take into consideration the fact that the dimensions of American military expenditure (which is taken as a point reference) are determined by the United States’ situation as a single superpower that is striving to respond to the problem of global governance through the strengthening of its own hegemony. Instead, for the purposes of a policy of world unification, which a federal Europe would be equipped to conduct, there would be no need to increase military spending. One need only consider the enormous waste generated by the current national division of military expenditure, the lack of standardised equipment, the dispersion and duplication of research, the excessive quantity of personnel, and the low level of investment. The extent of this waste is such that, as things presently stand, we Europeans would have to spend six times what the Americans spend in order to produce a comparable military capability. The creation of federal armed forces would allow huge savings, and thus permit the level of military efficiency needed to carry out all the security tasks that it falls to the EU to perform, without increasing (and possibly even decreasing) the current level of total European expenditure.

What has been said above should serve to clarify the question of the relationship between European defence and NATO (and, in more general terms, between Europe and the USA). It is clear that the autonomy in the sphere of defence that would be acquired by a federal Europe with a single defence system would automatically mean an end to the USA’s protectorate over Europe and lead to a transformation of the Atlantic Alliance into a genuine partnership of equals: a partnership that would will be able to act as the core and driving force of a policy of global unification. In fact, Europe’s dragging of its heels over the need to construct the European pillar of the transatlantic partnership is a key factor favouring American imperial strategy: indeed, America is now deliberately boycotting European unification and thereby undermining solidarity between the two sides of Atlantic.

Finally, a comment is needed on the critical relationship between the intergovernmental approach to defence and the European democratic process. Here, there exists an insurmountable contradiction. In order to avoid exacerbating the democratic deficit that characterises European integration, strict democratic control of the national parliaments, with regard to the behaviour of the national representatives in defence cooperation organisations, must be exercised. However, this only makes the achievement of consensus more difficult, given that the national parliaments are not responsible for pursuing the common European interest. On the other hand, intergovernmental cooperation can reduce its own structural and decision-making inefficiency only by more or less openly distancing itself from national democratic controls. Hence, in Europe, only a full parliamentary federation can reconcile decision-making efficiency with democratic control.

 Sergio Pistone

Editorials  
Year LII, 2010, Single Issue, Page 6       The Future of the European Union

Europe is currently experiencing three major crises. As explained by Alain Touraine in an article published a few months ago in La Repubblica (29 September, 2010), today’s Europe, “left without a future”, finds itself contemporaneously assailed by an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, by a dramatic political crisis (stemming from the European states’ incapacity to meet the challenges before them, i.e. to stimulate growth and reduce unemployment — both essential for getting their public finances in order), and by a profound cultural crisis, born of the incapacity to formulate a long-term plan for the future development of European culture and civilisation.
On all three fronts, our countries are urgently called upon to provide some answers. In short, Europe now needs to do much more than make minor adjustments to the existing Community framework. It needs to lay new foundations for European unification, and this can be done only through a strong act of political will. 
   Last spring saw Greece, the weakest link in the Eurozone chain, rocked by a financial crisis so severe that it threw into question the very survival of the monetary union and with it, that of the European Union itself. This crisis seems to have brought Europe, sharply, face to face with its own fragility. At the same time, by bringing out the contradictions that surrounded the birth of the single currency, it also seems to have forced the states, particularly those in the Eurozone, to appreciate anew the crucial need to think in terms of a common European destiny. This brutal exposure of the limits of the present European edifice has thus opened up a new phase in the process of unification, on whose outcome hangs the future of our whole continent.

 The euro was the product of economic integration and the single market project, but also of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the bipolar world order. The main objective behind its creation was political: it was considered necessary to strengthen the bonds between the Europeans in order to render their unity somehow “irreversible”, but also in order to obtain the binding commitment of Germany, newly reunified, to the European project. The thinking behind this “wager” — such may be defined this plan to create a currency without, at the same time, also creating a state — was that Europe’s political unification, however gradual, would, in any case, be unchallenged, and that the sense of solidarity between the European partners would remain constant over time. The Europeans deluded themselves that the birth of monetary union would quickly be followed by that of economic union, and by the implementation of a European growth and development plan. Although it was clear that the framework of the new European Union was not adequate to govern the single currency (this was already foreseen by the Maastricht Treaty, which indicated the need for a reform in this sense), it was hoped that the integration process would lead to gradual transfers of sovereignty in the political field too. From the economic perspective, it was believed that the criteria established by the Treaty to ensure homogeneity of the Eurozone (those relating to the national budget deficit, the public debt and inflation) would be sufficient to set all the members on the road to financial recovery and, providing there were no asymmetric shocks, guarantee harmonious trends across the different economies. 
   Instead (if we leave aside the euro’s successes as an international currency), the decade that has just ended saw the emergence and consolidation of trends, both economic and political, very different from the one that the introduction of the single currency had been hoped to trigger: the contradiction inherent in having a currency without a state has not become any less marked over time, and the steps that were meant to be advances towards stronger political unity have not been taken; on the contrary, the absence of adequate European institutions has actually triggered a gradual weakening of cohesion within Europe. [...]

The Greek crisis raised the problem of the need to save the euro precisely because it exposed the instability and contradictions of the single currency; this implies that the European Union, if it wants to find a new, sustainable balance, must break away from its past. 
   Until now, the response of the European governments and institutions has been to seek solutions that do not alter the current system. Indeed, behind the decision to tighten up the existing rules, and all the insistence that Europe’s difficulties stem from excessive debt, lies a dogged intention to continue along the old road, in short, a widely-held view that Europe does not need to create a new “single” policy, only pursue a course characterised by budgetary rigor. After all, a true European economic policy would imply a real transfer of sovereignty by the states, and this is precisely what, at present, Europe’s political leaders are not prepared to accept. In a speech given in September 2010, in Paris, during a debate organised by Notre Europe, the president of the European Council, Van Rompuy, who also heads the Task Force that, alongside the European Commission, is working out the new rules of European economic governance, explained extremely clearly the philosophy currently driving the Council (or rather the governments, although this actually applies to the Commission, too). According to him, the sole objective should be “Europeanisation of national politics”, because it is not a question of overcoming the national sovereignties, but rather of improving their co-existence. As Van Rompuy explains, faced with the risk of disintegration of the EU and a resurgence of nationalism, the point is not to criticise, as excessive, the weight of national policies; this weight has always been present within the Union, so why should it be deemed negative and not, instead, a source of greater strength? Europe is “a fact of life”, he says. “[W]ith its institutions it can force governments to cooperate”; it is a real entity that is founded on deep interdependence. The way in which Europe has reacted to Greece’s debt crisis has shown us “the invisible […] forces that hold us together.” Certainly, it has also provided “a fine example of what you might call the European tortoise: a slow, hesitant movement at first, which in the end surprised everyone — including the impatient stock markets!”; but of course, since “the European Union is not a state, decision-making procedures are complicated”; in the euro area alone, “we are dealing with 16 governments and 16 parliaments”. 
   What lessons, in Van Rompuy’s view, may be drawn from all this? First of all, that the Union must learn “to live with the dilemma of having a monetary union without a developed budgetary union. Since the euro was introduced the European institutions have been responsible for monetary policy, while the member states remain in charge of their budgetary policy and coordinate their economic policy. That creates tensions. Hence the sometimes tortuous decisions.” But the question is: “Can the euro survive despite this innate tension?” Van Rompuy replies with “an unambiguous ‘yes’”, commenting: “Our capacity to react during the crisis clearly showed this”. [...]

The problem that the Europeans must now resolve is that of creating a European federal state. This is a fact that has now become clear to all analysts, economists and, in particular, to the political world, especially outside Europe, even though few believe that we are capable of carrying the task through. Yet failure to unite will leave our countries dramatically impoverished and will lead to a return of social tensions and discriminations that we thought we had consigned to the past: in short, the end of European civilisation, with all the consequences that this would have on the balances of power in the word as a whole. Such scenarios are a real possibility and not mere academic hypotheses. 
   It is clear, after all, that unless the political balances are radically changed, even the introduction of tighter rules of economic governance in Europe will serve no useful purpose (other than having, possibly, a short-term deterrent effect on some markets). Indeed, at the end of a dramatic recession that has ushered in a situation of stagnant growth, how can the states possibly manage to withstand the tensions generated by swingeing cuts made in the absence of realistic growth prospects? If it is true that deficit and debt reduction is crucial to prevent Europe from being bullied by the markets, why is it that the action of other countries in similar economic straits is not conditioned in the same way (Japan for example, to say nothing of the United States)? And why is it that Europe should be the region picked out, on the international financial markets, as the weakest link? How long can the European states struggle on in these conditions? As English historian Niall Ferguson, referring to EMU, pointed out in a book published a decade ago (The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000), history can give us only examples of how monetary unions fall apart when national fiscal policy demands become incompatible with the constraints imposed by a single currency. 
   Van Rompuy’s question of whether the euro can survive in the current international setting despite the structural handicap of being a currency with sixteen different and diverging fiscal and economic policies, would thus hardly seem to warrant his “unambiguous ‘yes’”, a reply both optimistic and unexplained. The problem of Europe is that, through the Community method, it has relinquished the possibility of conducting politics at European level; at the same time, the states have been left totally powerless by the depth of their inadequacy and their crisis at national level. This is the real reason for the weakness of Europe, which has become a continent that no longer plans for the future, that has lost the capacity to conceive of an original model of economic development, and in which investment of resources and mobilisation of society with a view to progress have become things of the past.

The point, then, is this: if the current crisis is forcing the states to start seeing things, once again, from a European perspective, on pain of disintegration of the Union, our first task must be to remove all the ambiguity that surrounds the term “European”. Clearly, the answer to the crisis is not to try and increase the competences or powers of control, necessarily conflicting, of the Commission, the European Parliament, or the Council. Such attempts (which, moreover, run the risk of being misleading) would only strengthen the reciprocal constraints and would inevitably lead to unrealistic economic recovery plans (of the kind repeatedly proposed and repeatedly seen to be worthless). Neither is it realistic to hope that, with the institutional instruments at its disposal, the EU is, today, already in a position to increase its budget, issue Union bonds to fund European economic recovery policies, assume powers of taxation, and begin harmonising the fiscal systems of the member states; to hopethis is to fail to see that these are all steps that cannot be taken unless the states first display a clear will to unite politically. This, therefore, is the real issue: to understand how and whether this will can be elicited, at least in some of the states, and in particular in those with the most developed European consciousness, France and Germany first and foremost. 
   The questions to be asked, then, are: how might it be possible to bring about a return to the original European project, whose aim was to build a European federal state, and also to make people aware, once again, that a currency is an integral part of a state that, to work properly, must be set within an appropriate institutional framework and be part of an overall political programme? How can we make people aware, once again, that a currency, if it is to last, cannot for long remain divorced from fiscal policy, or from foreign and security policy; in short, from political sovereignty? [...] 
But turning this project into a solid prospect will demand the effort and commitment of everyone: citizens and society generally must start believing in it once again, not just wishing for it without any real hope of it happening. The question of Europe’s political future must become the main focus of political debate at European and at national level; in other words, as in the past, this issue needs to mobilise minds, so that ideas can be translated into action. Within Italy, France and Germany, in particular, given that these are the three countries that, for historical as well as political and economic reasons, are still the front on which the battle to build Europe will be won or lost, it has to become clear that the Europeans are faced with a choice of civilisation. It has to become clear it is the responsibility of these countries, first of all, to take the initiative in this sense, aware that the realisation of the federal state project depends on the presence of a vanguard to lead the way.
The road to be travelled is a difficult one, but the dramatic nature of the alternative makes it feasible that the states will be forced to set out on it. But for them to be able to do so — and this is indeed the first condition —, they need to have, as a guide, a clear vision of the ultimate objective. And this brings us to the first responsibility of those fighting for the European federation: to expose false solutions and point out, indefatigably, the road to be taken in order to build true unity.

   The Federalist

The Spinelli Group:

 Manifesto

The Spinelli Group: « Towards the United States of Europe? »

The “United States of Europe”, some critical reflections

“The United States of Europe – Towards a Transnational Society?”

Shadow European Council – Press review

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