Reconstitute the Spinelli Project

From SpinelliWiki

On 31 August 2007, Altiero Spinelli would have become hundred years old. In order to tame

the all too "free movement of capital", it is necessary to reconstitute the nearly forgotten project

of Spinelli to create a democratic European power, Mikael Böök writes.

On February 14, 1984, the European Parliament created the European Union by approving Traité instituant l ' union Européenne, i.e. a constitution for EU. ¹.

Or so it figured.

The decision was taken with 237 votes for and 31 against (43 absent). A safe majority. But the constitution of 1984 quickly passed into oblivion, and its drafter, the Italian politician Altiero Spinelli (August 31, 1907—May 23, 1986) would also be forgotten.

One of the two main buildings of the European Parliament carries his name. The new construction 1993 was baptized Bâtiment A. Spinelli.

Yet when German Minister for Foreign Affairs Joschka Fischer in May 2000 re-started the discussion about the constitution of the EU, he did not mention The Spinelli Project . Nevertheless, Fischer walked in Spinellis footprints when he spoke about going from confederacy to federation. ²

With confederacy is intended an association of states, such as the EU so far has been. Federation means a federal state such as the US of America.

Spinelli is the seminal figure of European Federalism. Why was his project shelved?

His Leftist stance was incompatible with the prevailing spirit of Thatcher and Reagan.

Originally a Communist, for which he was punished with 10 years in jail and 6 years in exile on the islands Ponza and Ventotene, he broke with the Communist Party in 1937, because of its Stalinism. During winter and spring 1941, while the armies of Hitler were achieving one victory after another, Spinelli and his friend Ernesto Rossi wrote a political program "For a Free and United Europe" (The Manifesto of Ventotene). ³

Who would believe today that the European Union was originally a Leftist project?

After the war, Spinelli lived as a government counsel and researcher. In 1970 he was appointed European Commissioner for industrial and research policy.

Having finished his period on the Commission, Spinelli decided to run for the European Parliament as an independent candidate on the list of the Italian Communist Party. He was elected in the first direct elections to the EP in1979.

During the following years, one would often see him in restaurant Crocodile in Strasbourg, where he continued to explain why the European federation is a necessary thing.

The ideas of the "Crocodile Club" soon prevailed among among the members of the European Parliament. By February 1984, an overwhelming majority was ready to vote for the federation.

For the Federalist Spinelli, the EU was primarily about a new and progressive political system. The integration of the markets was a secondary development.

The “F” word means reductions in national sovereignty to make room for a peaceful, Cosmopolitan world order, and to move power downwards, which means democratization.

When we compare the draft EU Treaty from February 1984 with the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe of October 2004, we have to ask: What is important in a constitution?

It is important that the constitution be brief. This is not a formality, but a question of democracy, because the citizens are supposed to know what it says. The 1984 draft finds room on 25 pages. The 2004 draft occupies 350 pages.

The text of the constitution should also be general enough. The values of the state must be spelled out, but detailed descriptions of the policies, or ideology, are not to be included. The 1984 draft keeps to generalities and it is ideologically neutral. The 2004 draft resembles a governmental program, and the end result of its phrases about free and undistorted competition and unrestricted capital movements is ideological bias.

The draft of 1984 does not even name the Atlantic Pact. The reason for this is not a particular opinion about NATO, but state wisdom. The world changes which is why a good constitution leaves the external relations of the state to separate agreements. The draft of 2004 treats NATO as if it were a European institution.

Also of importance is the way the law is made and approved. Spinelli thought that the European Parliament would act as a constituent assembly. This actually happened in 1984, but the national governments buried the constitution of the European Parliament.⁴

The Single European Act, which was elaborated by a commission and adopted by the governments a couple of years later, is not a constitution, but an enlarged free trade agreement.

The draft constitution of 2004 was made by the European Convention (which was established for the purpose by the governments). In France and the Netherlands, where the draft was really debated among the citizens, it was defeated in referendums held in May-June 2005.

The Federalist European Left grew out of the resistance movements of the 1940ies when Europe had to be freed from Nazism and the dictatorships. But the old order was rapidly restored, this time under American hegemony, and soon the Left became as disunited as Europe itself. ⁵

The time has come for the Federalist Left to be born anew. The Left was partly responsible for the defeat of the constitution of 2004. Well done, but the Left should come forth with an alternative to that Neoliberal tract. It should make “a sober proposal to create a democratic European power” (una sobria proposta di creare un potere democratico europeo).⁶

The EU, which is crossing the traditional geographical borders of Europe should gain control over those “mad and unbound Leviathans” (Leviatani impazziti e scatenati)⁷ whereby Spinelli once meant the national states of Europe and whereto we nowadays must add the pathological dictatorship of the financial markets.

Reconstitute Spinelli's project, the constitution of 1984!

(The article may also be downloaded as a file from Image:Spinelli 100en.doc )

FOOTNOTES

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1. The text of the draft treaty is found at http://www.spinellisfootsteps.info/ ↑
2. Fischer, Joschka: “From Confederacy to Federation: Thoughts on the Finality of European Integration.” Speech by Joschka Fischer at the Humboldt University in Berlin, 12 May 2000. http://www.cie.gov.pl/futurum.nsf/0/1289AFAAE84E5075C1256DA2003D1306 ↑
3. See Agustín José Menéndez (ed.): Altiero Spinelli - From Ventotene to the European Constitution. Oslo 2007.http://www.reconproject.eu/projectweb/portalproject/Report1_Spinelli.html ↑
4. See Bieber, Jacqué and Weiler: An Ever Closer Union. A critical analysis of the Draft Treaty establishing the European Union. Luxembourg, 1985. - Spinelli agreed to preface this book. He writes: “The European Parliament is not comprised of impractical theorists and revolutionaries. On the contrary, all the political views of the European electorate are represented in its ranks. At the end of three years of meetings and committed endeavour, the European Parliament has demonstrated that it is capable of identifying, clearly and coherently, what Europe most needs today.” This book contains much stuff on how the 1984 draft was received and refuted in the various EEC countries. More recent comment and analysis is found in Burgess, Michael: Federalism and European Union: the Building of Europe, 1950-2000. Routledge 2000. ↑
5. “Adopted by a majority, although with many reservations on all sides, the Spinelli project appeared to a good number of deputies to be a dangerous Utopia”, reported the newspaper of the French Communists (L'Humanité 16 September 1983). Actually, the French Communist deputies were amongst those who did not support the Spinelli project. See Devlin, Kevin: “Italian Communist Blueprint for European Unity”. Radio Free Europe 27 September 1983. http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/300/8/3/text/135-4-197.shtml ↑
6. Quoted from an article Spinelli wrote in 1957 and which he quotes in his autobiography Come ho tentato di diventare saggio (Società editrice il Mulino 1987), p 309. ↑
7. Ibidem. ↑