I. The European Union of Federalists (EUF)
9
I. The European Union of Federalists (EUF)
Alan Hick
Introduction
'When we recall today the emergence of this [European] federal idea during the war, not as a distant ideal, but as the cornerstone of the new democratic post-war world, we may fail to do justice to the originality and vigour of this vision, if we do not also remember that those who dreamed of it were exiles on penal islands, or in concentration camps, or members of the Resistence.'
As Altiero Spinelli so aptly recalled above,1 it is indeed important to remember that the contemporary European federal idea, in its full supranational form, was inspired to a very great extent as an idealistic rallying call in opposition to nazi-fascist oppression. A supranational European democracy was seen as a principle in itself, both in reaction to the failure of the pre-war nation-state system (embodied in the League of Nations) and its failure to prevent military aggression, and in reaction to the violent nationalistic tenets of nazi-fascism.
The European federalist movement needs to be seen in this initial light. For the 'founding fathers' of the EUF can in part be traced back to pre-war movements such as the Swiss Európa Union and to the British Federal Union, both of which proffered an alternative supranational form of peace-keeping government for Europe, and still more to the war-time anti-fascist and partisan groups and networks who looked to the defeat of nazi-fascism as the moment when a 'new humanity' would be ushered in via the supranational fraternity and solidarity of the European Resistance. This is why anti-fascist prisoners Ernesto Rossi,2 Altiero Spinelli and Eugenio Colorni3 jointly declared in the
A. Spinelli, 'European Union in the Resistance', in Government and Opposition 2 (1967), pp. 321-9, here p. 325.
Spinelli, Altiero: Born 1907 (Italy). Student of law and member of the Communist Party. Spent ten years in prison and six in confinement on account of his political activities, 1927-1943. Left Communist 'cell' in objection to Stalin's 'show trials' in 1930's. At the beginning of 1944 he joined the liberal-socialist Action Party, of whose secretariat he became a member after the end of the war. Founding leader of the Movimento Federalista Europeo (MFE) and of the EUF.
Rossi, Ernesto: Born 1897 (Italy). Disabled on active service in World War I. Economics professor and writer. Founder of the liberal-socialist anti-fascist move-
clandestine Ventotene Manifesto4 of 1941 that an end had to be made to the 'reactionary ... selfish ... militaristic-imperialistic, grip of nationalism in Europe and that a post-war 'solid international state' had to be created. It is also why the Italian Movimento Federalista Europeo, launched by the same leaders two years later, called for a post-war European Federation with democratic supranational executive, legislative and juridical organs; and why in turn the broader transnational European Resistance Manifesto5 of 1944 called for a directly elected European Government, along with a European Federal Constitution and a supreme European Court. It is why resultant partisan federalist movements such as the mainly French-Italian Comite International pour la Federation Europeenne of 1944 and the Dutch Europeesche Actie of 1945, etc., likewise aimed at establishing, in place of the failed League of Nations and of nationalistic tyranny, a post-war democratic supranational European
federal order.
After the liberation of Europe, however, not only was the old nation-state system re-installed, but the European federalist movement also became further disoriented by the temporary departure of founding leaders such as Spinelli and Rossi,6 and by the rapid growth of corporatist-inclined, so called 'integral
federalist* groups.
Drawn in part from the libertarian-Proudhonian ranks of the pre-war 'personalise school and from socio-catholic resistance groups jointly associated with Denis de Rougemont,7 Alexandre Marc8 and Claude-Marcel Hytte9 among others, who basically opposed the monolithic aspects of the centralized 'Jacobin' state, the 'integral federalist' current became increasingly absorbed by the more reactionary leading French movement Federation,
ment Non Mollare, 1924. Member in turn of the clandestine Giustizia e Libertd movement. Arrested 1930: Imprisoned and confined until 1943. Founding leading member of the Action Party and of the Movimento Federalista Europeo (MFE) 1943. Founding leader of the Italian Radical movement in the 1950s.
3 Colorni, Eugenio: Radical Socialist. Imprisoned 1938-1943. Chief Editor of the Socialist Avanti. Killed by the Germans in 1944 during the liberation of Rome.
4 Ventotene Manifesto, full text in Piccola antologia federalista, vol. 1, Rome, 1956, pp. 9-15; R. Vaughan, Post-War Integration in Europe, London, 1976, pp. 13-6.
5 See W. Lipgens, A History of European Integration, vol. 1, Oxford, 1982, p. 57.
6 See introduction to doc. 1.
7 de Rougemont, Denis: Born 1906 (Switzerland). Academic and writer. One of the founders of the 'personalise movement in France, 1933. Leading member of the non-conformist Ordre Nouveau and Esprit circles. Director of the Centre Europeen
de la Culture, Geneva, 1949-1985.
8 Marc, Alexandre: Born 1904 (Odessa). Emigrated to France at an early age. Student in Germany. Non-conformist intellectual in contact with the Esprit and Ordre Nouveau inter-war circles. Resistance member of Combat and Liberer et Federer, 1940-1943. Founding Secretary-General of EUF, 1946. Founding Director of the Centre International de Formation Europeenne, 1954, and author of many works
on federalist thought.
9 Founding leader of the Cercles socialistes, federalistes et communautaires pour une
republique moderne, 1946.
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Alan Hick
which had its roots less in the 'European Resistance' and essentially in the pre-war anti-parliamentary leagues and in the corporatist networks of Vichy France. Founded in 1944, its leading figures were, above all, followers of the Maurrassien tradition. Indeed, André Voisin10 as General-Secretary, Max Richard Editor in Chief, and Louis Salleron as the main 'cultural' spokesman, had all been in 'Action Francaise' circles before the war, whilst another founding leader, Bertrand de Jouvenel, had openly espoused fascism as one of Doriot's staunchest supporters in the 'Parti Populaire Francais'.11 Their views could not have contrasted more with the politico-constitutional rigour of the former supranational resistance identified with Spinelli-Rossi and the MFE. For the hard-core 'integral federalists' essentially rejected the liberal-parliamentary tradition based on 'one man one vote'; they rejected politico-constitutional models of representative democracy; they in fact rejected the very concept of 'political' sovereignty, and therefore the whole notion of a collective supranational European sovereignty expressed through representative 'political' methods and institutions. Instead, they wanted to devolve and distribute powers to what they called the 'living forces', that is extra-parliamentary economic and social groups, local and corporate communities, religious groups, ethnic forces, etc., whose respective responsibilities would somehow be calculated according to the ambiguous term, 'proportional to their social role'. Unlike  the  'founding fathers'  of the  anti-fascist federalist movement associated with Spinelli-Rossi and the MFE, the 'integral federalists' identified the European unity campaign, not as a 'political' ideal in order to extend the parliamentary state model to a supranational constitutional level, but rather as a 'social' and 'functional' oriented process by which a 'revolutionary' European Estates-General of the extra-parliamentary 'living forces' would emerge and somehow force national political establishments to cede powers to the corporate and local communities.
These fundamental differences not only divided the European federalist movement; they also, seriously, hampered its image. Indeed, as the influential European campaigner René Courtin complained, 'the society of which the federalists dream is unpleasantly close to the French ancien regime and to the Portugal of Salazar.'12
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li
12
Voisin, André: Born 1912 (France). Teacher and journalist. Contributor to the nationalist journal Insurgé, 1937. Director, during the Vichy regime, of the College of Syndical and Corporatist Studies. Founding Director, in 1944, of Federation. Leading member of the EUF Central Committee and of the European Movement International Executive Committee.
See A. Greilsammer, Les mouvements fédéralistes en France de 1945 a 1974, Paris, 1975, pp.41, 52, 117; E.J. Weber, Action Francaise. Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth-century France, Stanford, Gal., 1962, pp. 328, 380, 447, 466, 555n, 558, 562-3, 559; P. M. Dioudonnat, Je suis partout, 1930-1944. Les maurrassiens devant la tentation fasciste, Paris, 1973, pp. 69, 194-212, 245; J. Plumyěne and R. Lassiera, Les fascismes francais, 1923-1963, Paris, 1963, pp. 91-3, 130-1.
R. Courtin, 'French Views on European Union', in International Affairs 25 (1949), p. 17.
I. The European Union of Federalists (EUF)
11
At the outset and official launching of the European Union of Federalists in 1946 such divisions were less prevalent. The Hertenstein programme (doc. 1) and the Luxemburg declaration (doc. 2) highlighted more the differences of emphasis on the need for a European or World Federal Order, and the need to prevent a bi-polar division of power and inter-bloc hostilities. Likewise, after the founding of the EUF in December 1946, Hendrik Brugmans,13 as Executive Chairman of the movement, led a campaign which concentrated essentially on the need to establish a federated 'European third force' (docs. 3-6). - This first phase of EUF activity, in short, led and remained at the centre of an enlivened and popular movement of opinion for European unity. By mid-1947, the EUF claimed a membership of over 150,000 on an authentic transnational basis. Arnold J. Zurcher later enthusiastically registered that 'this group approached the dimensions of a mass organization with
truly multinational support.'14
In the run up to and holding of the First EUF Annual Congress, at Montreux in August 1947 (docs. 7-12), the movement began to turn inwards on itself, 'integral federalist' theory becoming more and more the order of the day. As Spinelli recorded, this led to a split at the Montreux Congress between the weaker MFE-led faction and the stronger Federation-led 'integral federalists' with their 'diverse conceptions' of European federalism. He went on to explain:
The Italian movement was anti-ideological, the French one was profoundly ideological. The Italian movement was fixed on creating European institutions with the view to developing a new European political framework which would profoundly revolutionize the whole of national and political life. The French movement regarded European institutions as being a simple element of co-ordination, incapable in itself of providing change, and for this reason supported a multiform programme of action which concern all the parts of existing society.'15
Hendrik Brugmans gave a similar version of the Montreux debate:
'In fact, on one side, the Italians of the MFE, Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi and their friends insisted exclusively on the necessity of a European political union. And for such a union to be viable, it needed a supranational power, which, in turn, could only be defined through a federal constitution. This being the case, the movement, in their opin-
13
14
15
Brugmans, Hendrik (Henri): Born 1906 (Netherlands). Student at Amsterdam and at the Sorbonne. Director of the Netherlands Workers Educational Institute, 1935-1940. M. P. (Socialist), 1939-1940. Arrested and imprisoned as a hostage in Camp Geisel, 1942-1944, then worked underground for the Je Maintiendrai resistance movement. Sent to report to Netherlands Government in Exile, 1945. State Secretary for Press and Information in first post-war Government, 1945. Founding Executive of the European Union of Federalists (EUF), 1946. Vice-Chairman of the European Movement International Executive Committee, 1948. A. J. Zurcher, The Struggle to Unite Europe 1940-1958, New York, 1958, p. 22. A. Spinelli, 'Storia e Prospettiva del MFE', in LEuropa nel Mondo, s. 1., 1953, pp. 156-60.
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Alan Hick
ion, needed to apply itself to one objective only: the convening of a European Constituent Assembly ...
On the other side, the French movement 'La Federation', animated by the tireless André Voisin, defended a very different position ... No doubt European union was indispensable, but its institutions, instead of slavishly copying national parliamentarian-ism, should reflect pre-existing social realities.'16
Despite the moderate bridge-building efforts of Brugmans and his Secretary-General Raymond Silva,17 the 'possibilisť leadership of the EUF were not able in the final event to keep the 'integral federalist* tide, with which in any case they partly sympathized, from dislocating the movement and pushing it away from the centre stage of the European campaign. As Spinelli again concluded:
'The integral federalist wing gained a complete victory at the Montreux Congress ... The EUF thus became a centre for attracting movements which wanted an integral transformation of the whole of society ... The Italians remained practically isolated in an attitude of opposition, deprived of practically any influence on the new international organization and its policy ... The negative results of this situation were not long in being felt... the French federalist movement... proved incabable of formulating a clear European federalist policy and remained identified essentially with their programme of internal federalism.'18
After the Montreux Congress, the EUF leadership in turn worked on a cor-poratist-inclined campaign for a European Estates-General, Alexandre Marc assuming prime responsibility for defining and promoting the campaign, Brugmans becoming increasingly hard pressed to keep the EUF on the same European wavelength as the broader ('unionist'-led) movement which organized the Congress of Europe at The Hague in May 1948 (docs. 13-17). The Hague Congress itself was a fiasco for the EUF, whose potentially 'anti-European' integral preoccupations put them out on a limb (doc. 18).
In turn, the Spinelli-Rossi-led MFE reasserted itself within the movement, so that the Second EUF Annual Congress, at Rome in November 1948, represented a turning point in the re-launching of a political-constitutional strategy (docs. 19-21). By early 1949 the 'integral federalist' corporatist period of dominance was over, and the EUF was finally able to promote a full-scale political campaign for a 'federal pact' and for a European Constituent Assembly (docs. 22-30).
By the end of 1949, however, the broader political campaign for a democratic supranational European order began to run out of steam. The year 1950 ushered in a different, technocratic, 'functional' approach to uniting Europe which the EUF could neither oppose (doc. 28) nor, in the final event, mould into a political and democratically accountable European system of their own
I. The European Union of Federalists (EUF)
13
making (docs. 29-30). It was too late. The supranational political ideal, spawned by the anti-fascist and resistance years, and sadly emasculated within the EUF during the crucial 1947-1948 formative period of the broad European campaign, would now have to be fought for inside the technocratic confines of another Europe.
1. The Hertenstein Programme: European Union
22 September 1946
CEC Archives, EUF papers, 'Le Document Federaliste', Paris 15. 1. 1947; H. Brugmans, L'idee europeenne 1920-1970, Bruges, 1970, p. 376; W. Lipgens, A History of European Integration, vol. 1, Oxford, 1982, pp. 306-7.
The 'preliminary meeting'at Hertenstein in September 1946 is usually referred to in subsequent EUF literature as the starting point of the movement, Europe an-wide.
Starting points are always difficult to establish, and especially in the case of the EUF, given the various pre-war and war-time federalist organizations briefly surveyed in the introduction to this chapter and in other chapters.
Be this as it may, by the Summer of 1946, the demise of the European Resistance' and the reluctant return of federalist founding fathers' such as Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi to national constitutional struggles for a commitment to the European idea resulted in a vacuum at European level which other federalist personalities now tried to fill. Sparked off by a 'draft of an alliance' agreed between Leon van Vassenhove, Hans Bauer of Europa-Union and Umberto Campagnolo, who had momentarily 'hijacked' the MFE, a new transnational nucleus started to emerge, drawing in such leaders as Hendrik Brugmans and H. R. Nord from Europeesche Actie, Francis Gerard from CIFE, Hans Salinger, Alfred Mozer, Ernst von Schenck and others. Together, they launched the Hertenstein conference of 15-22 September 1946, involving 78 federalist representatives from 13 countries.
Spearheaded essentially by Europa-UnionJEuropeesche Actie, the conference adopted a 12-point resolution drafted by Brugmans, von Schenck and Mozer. The text was subsequently adopted by the respective European federalist associations represented.1
1. A European Community on federal lines is a necessary and essential contribution to any world union.
2. In accordance with federalist principles which call for a democratic structure beginning at the base, the community of European peoples must itself settle any differences that may arise among its members.
3. The European Union is to fit into the framework of the UN Organization as a regional union under Article 52 of the Charter.
4. The members of the European Union shall transfer part of their sovereign
16
17
18
H. Brugmans, L'idee europeenne 1920-1970, Bruges, 1970, pp Leading member of the Swiss Europa Union. Spinelli, 'Storia', pp. 158-9.
123-4.
1  For more details on the launching of the Hertenstein programme and on the persons involved, see W. Lipgens, A History of European Integration, vol. 1, Oxford,
1982, pp.297-310.
98
Documents
I. The European Union of Federalists (EUF)
99
30. EUF Third Annual Congress: Motion Concerning a Euro-
pean Federal Constituent Assembly
19 November 1950
CEC Archives, EUF papers, Les Documents du Illem Congres de I'UEF, Paris, 30 November 1950 (173/SG), p. 1.
The EUF went on to adopt the following Resolution clearly calling for the setting up of an alternative European Constituent Assembly.
Together with the MSEUE and NEI, the federalist movement in turn launched at Stras-burg the so-called European Council of Vigilance' for the promotion of a concerted constitutional strategy in place of the 'impotent Assembly next door'.1
The Spinelli-Frenay dominated campaign for a federal pact and the convening of a European Constituent Assembly subsequently battled, but in the final event failed, to bring about a qualitative change towards a more supranational political community. Inside the Council of Europe itself they did manage to present an ambiguously worded draft before the Consultative Assembly in November 1951, but it was defeated and provoked the resignation of Paul-Henri Spaak as President of the Assembly. In turn, the Ad Hoc'Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community proved to be more receptive to the idea, but could not persuade governments by then to adopt the same attitude. By the mid-1950s, the federalists, like the European Movement as a whole, slumped into the periphery of European political affairs. They have since become reinvigorated, not least by the Spinelli-led campaign, still some 40 years after the founding of the movement, for a democratic supranational decision-making process and for a European Parliament worthy of the name.
The Third Congress of the European Union of Federalists:
Is of the view that the present position of Europe calls for the immediate institution of a federation open to all democratic states but consisting, for the time being, of those states that are already prepared to join it;
Reaffirms that, to put this federation into effect, a pact of federal union must be concluded among these states instituting a European government, parliament and supreme court and representative economic and social agencies, and transferring to these authorities certain attributes of national sovereignty in the fields of foreign policy, defence, the progressive unification of the economy, finance, the protection of human rights and communities;
Points out that in order to achieve this aim it is essential that the states which are prepared to enter into a federal union should undertake to convene a European federal constituent assembly, representing peoples and not governments, for the purpose of agreeing upon a pact of European federal union, which shall enter into force as soon as it has been ratified by a minimum number of states as specified in the pact itself, but shall remain open to accession by others; and
Decides, with all the emphasis at its command, to urge upon peoples, parliaments and governments the need to convene a European federal constituent assembly for the purpose of agreeing upon a pact of federal union.
1 A. Spinelli, speech to the 'European Council of Vigilance', 21. 11. 1950, MFE Bulletin, November 1950. Cf. Loth, Sozialismus, pp. 274-5.
31. Appendices: Lists of Members and Statute
Appendix 1 Members Elected to the Provisional EUF Central
Committee
Amsterdam, 16 April 1947
Lipgens, History, p. 377.
Allard (Antoine)
Brugmans (Henri)
Buchmann (Jean) Genet (Henri)
Gerard (Francis)
Hopkinson (Henry L.) Hytte (Claude-Marcel)
Josephy (Frances L.) King (Evelyn M.) Koch (Henri) Larmeroux (Jean) Maas Geesteranus
(Henry) Marc (Alexandre) Milo di Villagrazia
(Antonio) Nord (Hans R.) Olsen (Thomas Hatt) Rifflet (Raymond) Riou (Gaston)
Schenck (Ernst von) Schiess (Henri) Silva (Raymond)
Union federale Europeesche Actie Rassemblement federaliste Union europeenne
(Europa-Union) Comite international pour
la Federation europeenne Federal Union
Cercles socialistes, federalistes, et
communautaires Federal Union Federal Union Union federale £tats-Unis du Monde Mouvement pour un
gouvernement mondial La Federation
Europeesche Actie
Een Verden
Action europeenne
Union europeenne economique
et federaliste Europa-Union Europa-Union Europa-Union
Belgium Netherlands Belgium Switzerland
France
Great Britain France
Great Britain Great Britain Luxemburg France Netherlands
France
Associazione federalista Europea Italy
Netherlands Denmark Belgium France
Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland
Appendix 2
Members Elected to the EUF Central Committee
Montreux, 31 August 1947
Lipgens, History, pp. 591-2.
Adler (Ota) Brugmans (Henri) Buchmann (Jean) Genet (Henri), chairman 1947
Federal Union Europeesche Actie Rassemblement federaliste Union Europeenne (Europa-Union)
Great Britain Netherlands Belgium Switzerland