A REFORM OF THE UNION

MIROSŁAW PIOTROWSKI

‘In order to meet our all needs, the European resolution must be socialist’- this is a fragment of the Manifest from Ventotete, written by Altiero Spinelli, a communist founder of the European Union. He wrote this text during the Second World War together with another creator of European federalism Ernesto Rossim, when he was in prison on Ventotete island.

Nearly a year ago, just on the same Island on the Mediterranean Sea, the president of France, the prime minister of Italy and the chancellor of Germany met in order to talk on the future of the European Union. In their opinion the Union had to be reformed, it is doubtless. But how? Details were not given but the very choice of Ventotete island, according to the debaters, was to be a message itself. The spiritual leader of the reform was to be deceased Spinelli, and, exactly, his vision of the European integration. I will remind that in the mentioned Manifest he mainly required liquidation of national countries.

Quite recently new suggestions of ‘the thorough reform of the European Union’ has been presented by the chief of the liberals in the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt. He states that in order to save the EU, it is necessary to liquidate the European Commission. Yes, the one sharing EU money with Juncker and Timmermans. In the opinion of the reformer-initiator – in the place of this body it is necessary to create a small European government consisting of a dozen people. The idea that every EU country should have its representative in it, is called by him as ‘stuthe pid’.

Why is there such a certainty, or why is the Belgian euro-deputy certain, whose political fraction is only the fourth largest one in the European Parliament? Well, Verhofstadt is the founder of Spinelli’s Group. This is an informal body, which, as it states, associates prominent European politicians, who propounded ‘European interest over their national interest’. It also boasts about having a hundred thousand Euro-deputies from various political fractions. The small and big ones. Both the Christian Democrats where there are MEPs of the Civic Platform, the socialists with the Polish delegation of the Democratic Left Alliance and also the Greens, the liberals and the communists. It means a real force and its reflection in particular decisions of the institutional reform of the Union, and also its migration policy, forced relocations, etc.

The federalists do not hide their intentions. It is another time they have been trying to tighten a corset of integration towards citizens of EU countries, and achieve the right to intervene on their territory. But why are they wasting their time on presenting reforming scenarios. Couldn’t they refer to other classics, like Leonid Breżniew, who was explaining Polish comrades during the 5th Meeting of the Polish United Labour Party nearly half a century ago: ‘The social community, as a whole, has got a right to intervene on the territory of every EU country of the socialist block, are trying to disturb the development of this country and return the capitalistic political system’. And isn’t the Union threatened by the so-called populists? So, why to play reforms?

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„Niedziela” 25/2017

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl