by Giuseppe Romeo
In this day of studies, which is part of the preliminary phase of the research launched by the research unit of the Link University within the PRIN. European construction in the multipolar era: actors, movements, initiatives (1989- 2009), promoted by the Alizé Center for European and Transnational Historical Studies and in collaboration with the Jean Monnet EUlink, Edcseu and Ciak EU! projects, a strong appeal is renewed to promote a reform of the institutions that can make the European Union a cohesive actor and capable of tackling the most important continental and global challenges by contributing to the building of peace, social justice with access to essential services and the protection of terrestrial ecosystems.
There are men and women of Europe still wounded and offended by the tragedies of the last world conflict who believed they could open a new frontier towards a destiny that has always been common but, equally rejected over the years, almost as if they wanted to condemn the European peoples to conflict for the fight. A clash whether ideological or to affirm self-referential models, which would not have led to anything definitive.
Yet, despite the compulsive relationships typical of a War that was only apparently Cold, but very dangerously hot for a Europe divided for fifty years, from 1949 to 1989, there were those who – in the fragility of continental relations dictated by the confrontation between two political souls , ideological and economic, in the danger of an open front whose fault lines passed within each community – he was convinced that the fate of Germany would make the difference.
Willy Brandt was not just a German chancellor of the new version of a divided Germany. He was the one who, in a particular historical situation, managed to place the destinies of the continent and, with it, of Germany itself at the center in an attempt to bring about, through the success of the Ostpolitik, the initiation of cooperation and reconciliation between Europe western and eastern.
Brandt was a visionary and a pragmatist at the same time. He understood the difference that a Kennedy in the West could make as much as a Brezhnev forced, against his will, to have to deal with Khrushchev’s uncomfortable legacy.
Willy Brandt’s political action was not limited to redefining the role of social democracy by adapting it to the context of Western Europe, but translated into the desire to carry forward what was defined in Zimmerwald (5-8 September 1915) and the Bad Godesberg program (13-15 November 1959) overcoming, in a competitive formula of a new socialism, what could almost seem like an ideological version of a clear and unique Marxist-revolutionary and collectivist style in economics.
The ability to open relations with the Soviet Union on 12 August 1970 in Moscow, effectively inaugurating the Ostpolitik, having shocked Brezhnev with the “letter to the Germans” written close to the signing of the treaty with which he brought unity back of Germany in a new single historical experience, would have represented the historical accelerators for achieving the political unity of Europe.
Kneeling in Warsaw on 7 December 1970 for the German Chancellor – who felt the weight of the historical responsibility of a conflict – meant affirming the need to recognize the European drama and indicate the way to overcome the lacerations of the continent’s history.
«The Europe of citizens – said Brandt at the congress of the European Movement held between 5 and 7 February 1976 – is ahead of the Europe of governments. The European Parliament must be the voice of Europe. It has the possibility and the duty to be able to clearly define the European identity and to create the skills necessary for a European government for the sectors relating to common responsibilities. It must be considered as a permanent constituent assembly of Europe.” For Brandt, the construction of European unity could guarantee peace, democracy and the development of the quality of life.
A political Union of the federal type was the one approved, by a large majority, by the European Parliament exactly forty years ago, on 14 February 1984, on the initiative of an MEP, Altiero Spinelli, who had dedicated himself, since the years of confinement, as an anti-fascist, elaborating with Ernesto Rossi the Ventotene Manifesto in 1941, the entire political activity towards the construction of a supranational Europe.
With the worsening of tensions and wars in Europe and in the world, the legacy of Willy Brandt and Altiero Spinelli is certainly still important as an ambition and as a warning. Because, in a moment of reorganization of the balance of power between old and new powers, there is no space for a Europe weakened in its values and its ability to represent the best evolution and synthesis between the different democratic cultures.
“Da Willy Brandt al progetto Spinelli: riscoprire un’eredità politica utile all’Europa contemporanea”
(Read the Article on Euractiv)
L’eredità di Willy Brandt e del Progetto Spinelli e il futuro dell’UE
(Read the Article on Euractiv)