VIRGINIO PAOLO GASTALDI

Pace e libertà in un'Europa unita.

Idee e progetti dal XVI al XX secolo  

N. 3/1987

Summary — Starting from the XVI century some political thinkers were able to elaborate the concept of a unitary nature of Europe identifying a peculiarity of its own which distinguished it from the rest of the world. Some of them traced back such peculiarity in the political institutions (Machiavelli and Montesquieu); others in the cultural unity stemming from Christianity (Erasmus from Rotterdam and Campanella): others in a European, civilization founded on the laic values of human reason (Voltaire, Bentham, etc.).The individualization of a characteristic common to Europe, existing despite the extreme geopolitical fragmentation of the old continent, was the starting point of every juridical-philosophical-political project aiming at the attainement of objectives of peace and freedom lasting and secure inasmuch as set free from the risks of the political arbitrariness of the States. The a. analyses some of these projects (Campanella, Saint-Pierre, Rousseau, Kant, Saint Simon) pointing out how they, in the course of time, are characterized by a growing need to invent an authority superior than the one of the single States and thus capable of imposing on them, drawing more and more near to the institutions of modern federalism, born with the Constitution of the United States of America. From the federal reality of the USA, known directly or even more through the work of Alexis de Tocqueville, De la Démocratie en Amérique, have drawn their inspiration Carlo Cattaneo and Giuseppe Mazzini, who are at the basis of the present European federalism, to realize the ideals of peace, freedom and democracy called for also by Victor Hugo. But the American federalism, with a strong supra-State federal power, has taken place within an infra-national context. The present European federalism, instead, has to materialize through a process at the same time supra-State and supra-national. Here its difficulties and uncertainties lie. Already in the XIX century, however, the hoped for of the United States of Europe did not have any isolationistic purpose, but on the contrary affirmed the necessity of profound agreements with the United States of America.