DANIELA PREDA

De Gasperi, Spinelli e l'art. 38 della CED

N. 152

Summary - Art. 38 of the EDC represents the first stage of that which Mario Albertini defines, distinguishing it from the history of the integration, history of the "construction of Europe". For the first time, in fact, with art. 38 the governments of the six Countries of the so-called "little Europe" accepted, although with some ambiguity, the principle of the European Constituent, starting towards the setting up of a federal State.

It is well-known how, in the climate of the cold war and in the presence of the German problem, France held a Conference in Paris in February 1951 for the purpose of establishing a European Defence Community. At first, governments and delegates were opposed to any political development of the European army, adopting the so-called "functional approach", already experimented with the ECSC. After the drawing up of a "Rapport Intérimaire" in July 1951 that left unsettled the fundamental problems linked up with the creation of a common army, the Conference took a turn by presenting - on October 9 - an "Aide-mémoire" of the Italian delegation, in which was requested the institution of a representative Assembly elected by universal suffrage.

De Gasperi’s rôle was decisive. It was De Gasperi who obtained, in the course of the meetings of the six foreign Ministers in Strasbourg and in Paris, the inclusion of the constituent principle in art. 7H of the Convention, then art. 38 of the Treaty project. And it was again De Gasperi who obtained the anticipation of the Constituent, suggesting to entrust the task to the Assembly of the ECSC which, duly enlarged, coincided with that of the EDC. But an important contribution to the turn of the Italian delegation at the Conference of Paris came also from the Federalist Movement and, in particular, from its Secretary, Altiero Spinelli, who was able to take advantage from the Pleven Plan in order to make operative the proposal for holding a constituent Assembly upheld by him already in the immediate post-war period.

Thus a sectorial proposal, as that for the creation of a common army, was transforming into the first attempt to set up the European Federation