Reunion in Ventotene
(BRUSSELS2) The leaders of the three major European countries - which are now only three with the departure of the United Kingdom - Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande meet on the island on Monday of Ventotene to reflect, before the informal summit at '27' in Bratislava on September 16, ... on the future of Europe and prepare for the next European deadlines. Let's hope that the sea air and the atmosphere charged with the history of the place will allow them to free themselves from the constraints of the down-to-earth and to be a little more ambitious and... concrete.
A symbolic island
It was here that Mussolini's regime imprisoned communist activists and other opponents of fascism, including Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi. It was from this island, in the spring of 1941, that a “Draft Manifesto” was written “For a free and united Europe” (Per un'Europa libera e unita. Progetto of a manifesto), one of the main founding texts of the European idea, which irrigated Italian resistance during the war and beyond, and served as the foundation of the European Federalist Movement created in Milan in 1943. It was there that Altiero Spinelli was buried in 1986 in the Ventotene cemetery.
Withdraw from nationalism the means to harm
The idea of the "Ventotene Manifesto" is " tailored » — writes Bernard Poignant, adviser to François Hollande (2), on the day of the centenary of the birth of Spinelli — « sovereign national states are no longer able to guarantee the security of their citizens. They no longer know how to promote peaceful trade. Their horizon is limited to the conquest of the weaker neighboring countries. Their nationalism crushes everything and has become their creed. It is therefore necessary in spite of them and against them to save European civilization. For that there is only one solution: to withdraw from the States substantial parts of sovereignty »
On cigarette paper at the bottom of a tin box
The very way in which this text came into being, makes it possible to measure its content. " This text had to be kept secret and they hid it in the double bottom of an iron box. ". " They had no paper, a material considered dangerous by the fascists. They therefore wrote it on cigarette paper. »
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
Read also: Italy calls for a Defense Schengen. Will the call be heard?
Download Ventotene's manifesto (translated into French) byAltiero Spinelli Institute of Federalist Studies
(1) Read about the history of Penitentiary of Santo Stefano
(2) Former Mayor of Quimper and MEP (PS)