His frontier

“Supranational institutions would be insufficient and would risk becoming a training ground for particular rivalries and interests, if the men appointed to them did not feel themselves to be agents of higher and European interests”, said Alcide De Gasperi (1881-1954), “frontiersman” (he was an MP first in Vienna and then in Rome and for long served as Italian Prime Minister). De Gasperi is now recognized as one of the “founding fathers” of European integration. The European Parliament, on the initiative of the European People’s Party, is naming after him a room in the seat of the EP in Brussels on 23 March. One of the major experts on the life and work of De Gasperi is Alfredo Canavero, Professor of Contemporary History at the Università degli Studi in Milan. SIR Europe has interviewed him.Alcide De Gasperi is always included in the list of the “fathers” of European integration. Is it a “title” he deserves?“Indeed he does. There can be no doubt that the contribution of De Gasperi to the origin of European integration was important, especially during the phase of the drafting of the Treaty on the European Defence Community (EDC), when he succeeded in having inserted in it an article that would have led to a federal Europe already in the 1950s. Unfortunately, in 1954, the Treaty was not ratified by France and was never adopted”.How much influence was exerted, in this perspective, by De Gaspari’s biographical circumstances and his being a “frontiersman”?“The fact of being born in the region of Trentino and of being a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the first forty years of his life made De Gasperi understand the enrichment born from the co-existence between different nationalities, but also the problems that such co-existence could give rise to. It is no accident that two of the traditional ‘fathers’ of Europe, Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer, were also frontiersmen. Such men understood better than others the need to overcome Europe’s ancient nationalistic divisions and promote instead a European nationality”.But what was Gasperi’s political and institutional vision with regard to the process of continental unification?“De Gasperi had in mind a union that would progressively and ever more closely link the European countries, starting out from the six countries of the so-called ‘Little Europe’, i.e. France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg, which in 1951 gave rise to the ECSC, the European Coal and Steel Community. He liked to repeat that Europe would be created by starting out from the unification of armies and currencies. That explains his indefatigable work in support of the EDC, which was aimed not just at a European army, but also at creating a real unification of Europe in a federal perspective”.And what influence was played by De Gasperi’s Christian faith in his European political action?“The Christian faith gave De Gasperi, as it also gave Adenauer and Schuman, the ability to overcome the most difficult moments; it gave him that ‘surplus’ of energy he needed to seek to achieve the result. Christianity, moreover, was the spiritual and moral substratum that would permit the overcoming of the nationalistic mentality and promote European integration”.Sixty years have gone by since the foundation of the ECSC. Then came the EEC and now the EU. Can today’s European Union be considered the legacy of the “founding fathers”? How can the necessary evolution of their project be interpreted?“The European Union has been enlarged too much and in too much of a hurry, without the steps to ensure the necessary cohesion, undoubtedly easier in the 6-member than in the 27-member Europe. Member states don’t want to relinquish their sovereign prerogatives and today Europe is more similar to the Europe of nation-states wished by General De Gaulle that the federal Europe dreamt of by the first pro-Europeans. The uncertainties and disharmonies of the EU on how to tackle the major crises of our time, such as that of the former Yugoslavia or that of Libya today, make us understand how essential it is to return to the spirit of integration of the 1950s if we want the old continent to count for something at the international level. But for this to happen, men of moral fibre like that of the founding fathers would be needed”. Ceremony in Brussels and a book in five languagesThe ceremony to dedicate a room to Alcide De Gasperi in the European Parliament will take place on 23 March. Leading EU figures have been invited to the ceremony, including the President of the EP, Jerzy Buzek, the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European People’s Party Wilfried Martens and the head of the EPP group in the Parliament, Joseph Daul. The ceremony will also be attended by Maria Romana De Gasperi, daughter of the Italian statesman, among his biographers. A new edition of Alfredo Canavero’s book “Alcide De Gasperi. Christian, Democrat and European” will be presented during the ceremony, translated into English, French, German and Spanish, as well as Italian. The inauguration of a memorial plaque and a bust of De Gasperi is also planned.