European mission

The calendar for the year 2007 includes the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the European Union (former Community). High level gatherings are planned to recall the signing, on the Capitol, of the birth certificate of the great novelty of the post-war period

Giulio Andreotti

Antonio Segni and Gaetano Martino signing for Italy the Treaty that instituted the European Economic Community, Rome, Capitol, Sala degli Orazi e Curiazi, 25 March 1957

The calendar for the year 2007 includes the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the European Union (former Community). High level gatherings are planned to recall the signing, on the Capitol, of the birth certificate of the great novelty of the post-war period.
The first unitary schema for the continent was drawn up in London in 1948. Italy did not join – in spite of American pressure – because the mood was one of hostility towards Germany, rather of control of Germany itself, which at that moment was the sum total of general hostility. De Gasperi was very succinct: «If we don’t manage to create some structure with the Germans I don’t know what color their shirt will be in ten years’ time, but it certainly won’t be a democratic color».
With the same design, when the following year Italy negotiated its adhesion to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, we made sure that, once the peace treaty was signed by the Germans, they, too, would join the Alliance.
Later developments marked a success and a failure. The former was making a single equation of coal and steel resources, laying to rest the deadly French-German contrasts; the failure, because the French government voted against, was the ambitious aim of a unified European army.
De Gasperi was only dead a few days when the French voted against Europe. It was the Liberal Gaetano Martino who set things going again, from Messina, with a new model that took on definition in March 1957. The understanding was achieved by coordinating the economic interests. For the moment the idea of political understandings had to be shelved, but in the design there was great international scope, projecting very wide contacts (the acronym ACP meant links with Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific). In that aim understandings were entered into with many new overseas States, helping their autonomous growth when the colonial regimes were got rid of.

The Giulio Cesare Hall of the Capitol during the speeches before the ceremony for the signing of the European Constitution, held in the Sala degli Orazi e Curiazi, 29 October 2004

At the start the productive sectors – especially the large industries – were quite contrary to this widening of the borders. And that was understandable. The maintaining of strong tariff barriers protected Italian products. The autarchic thinking of the twenty years of Fascism did not wane with the Liberation.
With an intelligent mental shift, however, Italian manufacturers soon grasped the positive opportunities of the Community and stood up in its defense, even going against the positions of many political forces (the Communists were totally against, the Socialists found it partially possible).
Let me skip all the intermediate stages, including the timid beginnings in other than economic relations. As when the University Games (the Universics) sport meeting was exploited to arrange the encounter of the ministers for education in the aim of comparing their respective training programs.
The entry of England, and that of Spain and Portugal, was decisive. In the background the quarrel with the Soviet universe was both a coagulating factor and a reason for division.
Few people then imagined that the countries listed as satellites of Moscow, and as such taking the line of contemptuous hostility towards the capitalist aggregation of Europe, would one day ask to join, thus approaching the single continent schema.
But it is pointless to dwell on these early evolutions, that were brilliantly got over – the area nearly entirely enlarged – in connection with the waning of the Communist empire.

Perhaps there was... overhastiness both in the passage from Community to Union and in the enlargement to 25 (now 27). And also the stipulating of the Constitutional Treaty, which occurred again in Rome, on 29 October 2004, was not altogether natural. Two countries (France and Holland) did not ratify thereby blocking total passage, but one should not underrate the fact that a certain number of countries (Italy included) did ratify.
The rule that the vote be unanimous, which is a guarantee of the effective convergence of interests, has also the negative aspect of the possible exercise of the right of veto. Those who have followed, from moment to moment, the ongoings of these fifty years do not let themselves be put of by large-scale criticism. The requirement to settle all opposing stances and reservations involves limits, but also steadfastness in objectives.
In the millennial history of Rome, the killing of Caesar, betrayed and abandoned by his followers, is linked to the Ides of March. On that morning the “Fathers”, whom he himself had advanced in the last batch, sure that he had increased his majority, were missing from the Senate.
And on that, the popular wisdom expressed in proverbs, warns us that only God can save us from our friends.
But – proverb for proverb – I remember the one from the Italian Risorgimento: «Now we have made Italy let’s make the Italians». The hope that the Europeans get made comes spontaneously.
We can, as Italians, be proud of being among the six countries in the brave Mission of 1957. Perhaps that gives us some right, but certainly many duties.
We must not allow this moment to pass without giving fresh vigor to our supranational convictions. We survivors must feel it as a true social mission.