Altiero Spinelli: The ambition of a United and Federal Europe

The European Union is the product of the meeting of different ideas of people who had experienced the devastating effect of the conflict among nations and were tired of the nationalist doctrine which had been causing hostilities among the countries.

Within the existence of the concept of Europe as we know it today, and European ideals, lays the presence of an Italian personality which ought to be analyzed more deeply. This is Altiero Spinelli, undoubtedly one of the founding fathers of the European Union and a convinced theorist of the European Federalism. The timeless idea of the need of a free and United Europe is something which will serve as a model for any statesman involved in the safeguard of our continent. Spinelli is the author of the “Ventotene Manifesto: For a Free and United Europe”. His work represents a great contribution for the creation of the several European Institutions. However, the current state of the European Union can reasonably make us affirm that the content of this fundamental work has been forgotten, or inaccurately followed.

After having joined the Communist Party in 1924, Spinelli decided to become an anti- fascist revolutionary and was arrested in 1927 and later convicted with the accusation of Anti-Fascism. The most crucial moment which will definitely shape Spinelli’s ideals is when he is relegated to the Island of Ventotene. While in jail, Spinelli distances himself from communism, mainly as his ideals are against the Soviet dictatorship. Meeting three more confined people who oppose the regimes , Ernesto Rossi, Eugenio Colorni and Ursula Hirschmann, allowed him to study and meditate on Federal ideals, which would later lead them to the writing of the Ventotene Manifesto.

Spinelli’s ambition of a federal and united Europe was actual and innovative for Spinelli strongly believed in the possibility of the involvement of people, which would fully take part in the process of European integration. This is the reason why Spinelli strongly insisted on writing a European constitution and rejected the technocratic view of the Steel and Coal Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC), which resembles the current architecture of a deeply structured Europe, with the lack of a real European awareness.

In the first paragraph of the Ventotene Manifesto, the author describes the danger of a political idea based on absolute sovereignty, as it misinterprets the aim to which a nation is designated, the nation “ is not considered as the historical product of human coexistence, but as a divine entity which is only focused on its existence, without thinking about the consequences of this on others.” Additionally, Spinelli reminds us that the absolute sovereignty of national states brought them the will to dominate each other.

The Ventotene Manifesto suggested a more genuine idea of Europe, based on the concept of liberty as a democratic tool which deserves a great impact on political life, with an emphasis on social solidarity, instead of a merely bureaucratic organization focused on economic agreements without an effective European integrity.

We cannot avoid asking ourselves, in a period of uncertainty for the destiny of the European Union, what Europe would have been today if, as Spinelli was hoping, a European constitution had been written. We would probably have a more cooperative

continent, with citizens who actually feel European and care about the condition of peace of the continent and the issues which affect it. A real process of European integration promoted by the EU is still missing, and this counterfactual scenario seems to be quite far from the reality of Europe today, in which states do not focus on the task of developing a stronger sense of a united continent.

Despite Spinelli’s federalist project never actually took shape, Spinelli gave a great contribution to the European Union as European Commissioner between 1970 and 1976 and as a Member of the European Parliament between 1976 and 1986, specifically inspiring the increase of the powers of the European Parliament and the Single European Act of 1986 which opened up the national borders for the common market, and for the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 forming the European Union.

Altiero Spinelli’s ideas do not have to be considered solely within a federalist project for Europe, but as a pattern of principles which are still needed if we want to build a more authentic Europe.

Marco Zarzana