Forty years after his death the 23 of May 1986, various events were held to discuss the legacy and relevance of Altiero Spinelli and his European struggle, which began as a fight for freedom whilst he was imprisoned as a young communist in fascist jails and became the main focus of his life from the winter of 1941 in Ventotene until his death in Rome on the morning of 23 May 1986.
He began to die on 18 December 1985 when the governments of the Ten — with the endorsement of the European Commission chaired by Jacques Delors and with the gradual erosion of the European Parliament’s constituent resolve — decided at the Intergovernmental Conference in Luxembourg of 17 December to remove from the future Single European Act the essential elements of the draft approved by a large majority of the Assembly on 14 February 1984, namely:
- qualified majority voting as the rule for Council decisions,
- the consequent power of codecision for the European Parliament,
- the social dimension of the internal market within the framework of a broader policy of society,
- and the transition from ineffective cooperation on international relations – as outlined in the reports of the Belgian diplomat Etienne Davignon – to a progressive foreign and security policy supporting the international cooperation, the social justice and the peace.
Altiero Spinelli had, however, left a political legacy to ‘his’ Committee on Institutional Affairs in which he put forward the idea of a constituent mandate for the European Parliament to be elected in 1989, suggesting an appeal to citizens with a European referendum and a decision by a majority of Member States, alongside the political programme for the June 1979 election campaign in which he states that it must be the elected European Parliament that “changes the Community Constitution”.
For those wishing to delve into his complete works, we suggest consulting his microfilmed archives, held at the European University Institute, to draw on the original sources, thereby avoiding convenient interpretations that do not always correspond to Altiero Spinelli’s authentic thinking.
We believe that we must gradually re-establish the conditions so that the next European Parliament, elected in June 2029, assumes a substantially constituent role, as did the first elected European Parliament, by choosing the third of three radically alternative paths:
- to proceed with the process of European integration by limiting ourselves to using the existing treaties,
- relying on the goodwill of governments which, then as now, retain the formal power to amend the treaties,
- upholding the inalienable principle that the popular sovereignty enshrined in the preamble of all democratic constitutions must be realised through the constitutional drafting work of an assembly representing the will of the people.
There will be an opportunity to discuss the effectiveness of the constituent method in a few days’ time, when we commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the Italian referendum of 2 June 1946, the election of the Constituent Assembly with a campaign launched by President Sergio Mattarella under the slogan “We are the Republic” – which could be adapted at European Union level with a similar slogan: “We are Europe”.
The constituent method will not suddenly fall from the sky during the election campaign for the renewal of the European Parliament in June 2029, and the European parties – which are the sometimes diverse sum of national parties – will not automatically include this goal in their programmes by selecting candidates with a constituent spirit and preparation, and by identifying the essential content of the future project and the working method to bring it to fruition.
Instead, preparatory work will be needed in the national parliaments, which will have been largely renewed by spring 2029, accompanied by political, economic, financial and legislative initiatives during this parliamentary term that highlight the added value of the European dimension in terms of what has been achieved, for what remains to be achieved, for the costs of a lack of European integration, and for the reasons that call for laying the constitutional foundations of a Europe where sovereignty is shared and not undermined by the conflict between seemingly absolute national sovereignties.
To give immediate substance to this preparatory work, it will be necessary to follow up on certain priorities of this parliamentary term, which concern in particular:
- social and environmental sustainability with the presentation of the social action plan by the European Commission, which has been awaited since 2025,
- the acceleration towards renewable energies and a strict fiscal policy against the mega-profits of fossil fuel companies, as called for by the Laudato Si’ Movement and one hundred Christian organisations,
- the “care of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence” referred to in Leo XIV’s first encyclical,
- the programme for housing policy, which was already considered one of the most important European innovations as early as 2024,
- the European response to demographic decline and ageing populations, involving migration policies on reception and inclusion,
- the convergence of economic policies and the development of an industrial policy as prerequisites for competitiveness,
- the completion of the single market in all its still embryonic aspects,
- the approval of a multiannual financial framework which the European Parliament would like to see as more ambitious, based on European programmes and new own resources, and set to change with a four-year cycle ending in 2031.
Then there is the European Union’s role in the world – which concerns not only the issue of defence as an element of foreign and security policy, where, to counter the devastating effects of national rearmament, work must be done on the idea of a “Schengen” model within the treaties and a European public debt – but also within a multilateral vision by reviving strategic partnerships with Africa, the Mediterranean, Asia and Latin America to address the unforeseen and unpredictable effects of wars on European economies, which are set to slow down due to energy shocks that will drive up inflation.
To the extent that these policies are developed, or where they remain stalled in insurmountable institutional bottlenecks, the added value of the European dimension will become evident, as will the simultaneous need to launch a reform of the European Union that takes into account the consequences of its democratic functioning in the context of future enlargements.
On this basis, founded on the content of the project, the mandate to implement it and the actions to be taken (the agenda), we launched the ‘1000’ goal’, as there will be one thousand days to go until the European elections of 6–9 June 2029, setting three intermediate milestones from now on:
- 9 and 10 December 2026 in Brussels to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Laeken Declaration, which gave rise to the Convention on the Future of Europe and the drafting of a Constitutional Treaty rejected by France and Netherlands in the worth version approved by national governments,
- European initiatives in Rome from 19 to 25 March 2027 to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1957 Treaties of Rome,
- a “Congress of Europe” in May 2028, eighty years on from the one held in The Hague from 7 to 9 May 1948, which could be organised in Italy during the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union as part of the trio comprising Italy, Latvia, and Luxembourg.
Finally, in the run-up to the 2029 European elections, the European Parliament must demand that the European Council launch interinstitutional negotiations on a uniform electoral law, on transnational lists and on the procedures for selecting the future leaders of the European institutions (Spitzenkandidaten).
Rome, 26 May 2026