Altiero Spinelli was one of the authors of the Ventotene Manifesto, one of the first documents to espouse the creation of a united Europe and a European constitution. He, along with other political prisoners, drew up the manifesto while incarcerated by the Italian fascist regime on the island of Ventotene.
Life and times
After the Second World War, Spinelli established the Federalist Movement in Italy. Throughout the rest of the 1940s and 1950s, he was a staunch advocate of the federalist cause of a united Europe. In the 1960s, Spinelli, as a government adviser and researcher, established the Institute of International Affairs in Rome. He was a member of the European Commission from 1970 until 1976, and in 1979, he was elected as a Member of the European Parliament.
A vision for Europe
In 1980, together with other federalist-minded MEPs, he founded ‘The Crocodile Club’, whose members tabled a motion for the Parliament to draft a proposal for a new treaty on the European Union. On 14 February 1984, the European Parliament adopted his proposal with an overwhelming majority and approved the ‘Draft Treaty Establishing the European Union’, the ‘Spinelli Plan’.
Altiero Spinelli speaking on 8 July 1981 in Strasbourg
Altiero Spinelli speaking on 8 July 1981 in Strasbourg
Above all, we must keep on increasing Parliament's level of overall involvement. That is why we are calling for a new parliamentary committee that, whatever its title, would focus exclusively on this issue. In due course, it would produce interim reports, urging Parliament to choose between the various options put forward and to build as broad a consensus as possible through open debate. The aim would be to have a reform project adopted, with everyone fully aware of the significance and implications.