Altiero Spinelli
Altiero Spinelli | |
---|---|
Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship | |
In office 1 July 1970 – 4 July 1976 | |
President | Franco Maria Malfatti Sicco Mansholt |
Preceded by | Guido Colonna di Paliano |
Succeeded by | Étienne Davignon |
Member of the Chamber of Deputies | |
In office 5 July 1976 – 10 July 1983 | |
Constituency | Rome |
Member of the European Parliament for Central Italy | |
In office 10 June 1979 – 23 May 1986 | |
Parliamentary group | Communist and Allies Group |
Personal details | |
Born | Rome, (1946) | 31 August 1907
Spouse | |
Children | 3, including Barbara |
Profession | Writer |
Altiero Spinelli (31 August 1907 – 23 May 1986) was an Italian communist politician,
Spinelli had a leading role in the foundation of the
Early life
Spinelli was born in Rome, the son of a
Ventotene Manifesto
In June 1941, well before the outcome of the war was safely predictable, Spinelli and fellow prisoner
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. 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 hostility to nationalism. In the founding meeting of the MFE, he said: "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."[citation needed]
The Manifesto criticised the "capitalist imperialism which our own generation has seen expand to the point of forming totalitarian states and to the unleashing of world wars".[3] It also declared that "the European revolution must be socialist, that is it must have as its goal the emancipation of the working classes and the realization for them of more humane living conditions".[4] However it opposed "doctrinaire" formulations of transitions to socialism and said "private property must be abolished, limited, corrected, extended: instance by instance, however, not dogmatically according to principle".[5]
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
A critic of the USSR, Spinelli argued that "only when it is faced by a united federal Europe will the USSR be brought to a halt".[6]
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
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.
European politician
Following the crisis of the failure of the EDC and 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[7] from 1970 to 1976, taking responsibility for industrial policy to develop European policies in a new field.
Spinelli decided to run in the
While an MEP he was a member of the Communist and Allies Group.[10] Spinelli advocated what he described as a "democratic and social transformation of the European Community". He praised the French communists for providing a "positive contribution to this battle"[10] and said that under his influence the PCI had "adopted the line which I had sought and supported for many years, especially the need to transcend economic unification and move towards a European political union".[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. [11]
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).[12]
Spinelli's project was soon buried by the governments of the member states. However, it provided an impetus for the negotiations which led to the
Personal life
He married
Reception
Although the resultant treaties fell short of what Spinelli would have liked, his efforts triggered a new momentum in European integration, including a major increase in the powers of the European Parliament within the EU system. In honour of his work, the largest building of the Espace Léopold, the European Parliament complex in Brussels, was named after him.
On 15 September 2010, under the name Spinelli Group, an initiative was founded to reinvigorate the strive for federalisation of the European Union (EU). Prominent supporters of the group are: Jacques Delors, Joschka Fischer, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Andrew Duff, Elmar Brok.
Honours
- Honorary degree, University of Hull, 1984
- Honorary degree in memoriam, University of Pavia, 1988.
- Honorary degree, Loughborough University, 1973
See also
References
- Piero S. Graglia, Altiero Spinelli, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2008
- ^ Haller, Max (2008). European Integration as an Elite Process: The Failure of a Dream?. Routledge. p. 102. See also Spinelli, Altiero (1987). Come ho tentato di diventare saggio (1987). This autobiographical work was to be in two parts. The first part, which appeared during Spinelli's life-time under the title Io Ulisse (1984), covers the life of the author until the Liberation (1943). Spinelli's writing on the second part (La goccia e la roccia) was interrupted by his death in 1986.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (link) - ^ "Altiero Spinelli – European Federalist" (PDF). Retrieved 8 January 2019.
- ^ Continental Plans for European Union 1939–1945. De Gruyter. 2019. p. 474.
- ^ Wiesner, Claudia (2018). Inventing the EU as a Democratic Polity Concepts, Actors and Controversies. Springer International Publishing. p. 91.
- ^ The Cold War: Interpreting Conflict Through Primary Documents: Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. 2018. p. 114.
- ^ Fabbrini, Sergio (2005). Democracy and Federalism in the European Union and the United States Exploring Post-National Governance. Taylor & Francis. p. 32.
- ^ At last, Mr Eurotec. The Economist (London, England), Saturday, 6 March 1971; pg. 92; Issue 6654.
- ^ Murray, Philomena (2019). Visions of European Unity. Routledge.
- ^ a b Euro-communism Its Roots and Future in Italy and Elsewhere. 1978. pp. 179–80.
- ^ a b Dunphy, Richard (2004). Contesting Capitalism? Left Parties and European Integration. Manchester University Press. p. 54.
- ^ The European Parliament's Role in Closer European Integration', London, Macmillan (1998)ISBN 0-333-72252-3 and New York, St Martin's Press (1998) ISBN 0-312-21103-1. Reprinted in paperback by Palgrave, London (2001) ISBN 0-333-94938-2
- ISBN 0-333-94938-2
External links
Media related to Altiero Spinelli at Wikimedia Commons
- Web site of the Spinelli Committee for the celebrations of 100 years from his birth 1907–2007
- The private papers of A. Spinelli deposited at the Historical Archives of the EU in Florence
- A short biography from the Young European Federalists organisation
- Text of the Ventotene Manifesto
- Text of the Ventotene Manifesto (Archived 2009-10-25)
- Draft Treaty Establishing the European Union Archived 24 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine
- Agustín José Menéndez (ed.): Altiero Spinelli – From Ventotene to the European Constitution. Oslo 2007 Archived 28 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine
- www.altierospinelli.org