Altiero Spinelli and his European dream

The European Union faces its gravest crisis since the common market came into existence at the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Individual states dissatisfied with the technocrats in Brussels are reasserting their right to determine their own policies and laws while many of Europe’s regions are seeking more autonomy or even independence. Concern over the influence of Islam and its radical factions, and massive immigration caused by poverty and military conflicts in Africa and Asia, has led to the rise of populist political parties across the continent, bringing the fear of a return to rightwing extremism.

Instead of a European utopia, we face the break-up of the EU and the end of the dream, which began on a tiny island off the Italian coast in 1941.

Ventotene is a small volcanic island part of the Pontine archipelago off the west coast of Italy in the Tyrrhenian sea between Rome and Naples. First used as a prison during the Roman Empire, Mussolini chose the island to incarcerate Italian antifascists, many of who were communist intellectuals. Among the inmates were Sandro Pertini, Eugenio Colorni, Ursula Hirschmann, Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli.

It was here in 1941 that the dream of a united Europe began. Having grown up under fascism, these people believed that while the existence of the nation state signified great progress, giving people an identity, culture and language, sovereignty invariably resulted in political and economic power of the elite over the people. They had witnessed how totalitarian regimes had transformed nation states into military powers whose aim was to dominate others seen as a threat. The loss of civil liberties enabled nations to become machines of war and peacetime was simply an opportunity to prepare for future armed conflicts.

Rossi and Spinelli began to work on a political manifesto, which laid down their ideas for a federation of European states, which would, in their view, prevent future military conflicts and the rise of totalitarian states. The statement set out a number of ideals, which they believed were fundamental in establishing political and social reforms across the continent. Their paper was called “For a Free and United Europe — a draft manifesto”. The Ventotene Manifesto, as it became known, was initially circulated secretly among the Italian Partigiani resistance movement until 1943, when the island was liberated by the US. Colorni and Hirschmann were married, but Colorni was killed in 1944 just before the liberation of Rome. Pertini, Rossi and Spinelli all survived the war and continued their political careers. Pertini went on to become president of Italy, while Rossi and Spinelli remained outspoken advocates for the European Federalist Movement. Hirschmann had met Spinelli in Ventotene and drawn together after the war they spent the rest of their lives together.

Many of their proposals were implemented in the years that followed the war, which saw democracy and peace as well as major political and social reforms spread across the European continent. Spinelli’s greatest satisfaction was seeing the creation of the common market and then the EU. However as communists, the writers believed in pure socialist principles and the manifesto followed that doctrine. The struggle was against social inequality and privileges; those who owned nothing had the same rights as wealthy landowners; capitalistic economic forces should not control the people but be subject to control by the people so that the majority of the population would not become victims of the system.

They were against monopolies being in private ownership and believed that sectors for the common good (electricity, water etc) or required subsidies to survive should all be nationalized. Agriculture would be organized around cooperative farms and mass-produced goods of necessity - food, housing, clothing and a minimum of comfort - must be available to all.

Today in Europe many of the Manifesto’s ideals are taken for granted — free education, the end of totalitarianism, freedom of speech, access to housing and the right to participate in the process of government. There have been unprecedented social and economic advances, and more than 70 years of peace since the end of the second world war has enabled Europeans to live and work together.

But the beginning of the 21st century has also seen many of the original objectives discarded by a society that has become corrupt and greedy in the quest for political power and monetary gain. Instead of looking after the wellbeing of the people, governments have pandered to the demands of the elite to preserve their privileges. The financial crisis has brought to the surface a growing disparity of wealth and inequality, with the expansion of the global economy and advent of new technology. The significance of unions, once staunch protectors of the working class, has been radically weakened. Lack of regulation has allowed the financial and corporate sectors to help themselves to the nation’s wealth through massive earnings, privatization of national assets and the use of tax havens. Instead of a fairer society, private property and inheritance laws are aimed at maintaining the wealth and privileges of the elite: the wealthiest 85 people own more than the three billion poorest people on the planet. And while in the richest nations the privileged elite has seen its wealth and power increase, austerity measures have caused severe hardship to a substantial percentage of the population.

Altiero Spinelli who became a European commissioner and then a Euro MP until his death in 1986 at 79 — the main European Parliament building in Brussels is named after him — would be disappointed at seeing the Europe he helped create in such turmoil and confusion. Just like another European visionary, Victor Hugo, who had himself once dreamed of a united Europe.

If the EU is to survive the present crisis, political leaders should take another look at the Manifesto and its objectives, to revive the dream of one of its founding fathers.