The Spinelli Group is an initiative founded with a view to reinvigorate the endeavour for federalisation of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

(EU), by creating a network of citizens, think tanks, NGOs, academics, writers and politicians who support the idea of a federal and united Europe. Among other goals, the Group aims to ''"find a federal majority'' mong members of the European Parliament">members_of_the_European_Parliament.html" ;"title="mong members of the European Parliament">mong members of the European Parliament''on important subjects."'' Founded on 15 September 2010 in the European Parliament (EP) in Brussels, the group is named after Altiero Spinelli (1907–1986), founder of the

Union of European Federalists The Union of European Federalists (UEF) is an international non-profit association originally founded in 1946 and refounded in 1973, promoting the advent of a European federal State based on the idea of unity in diversity. In 1946, it brought ...

(UEF) and a Founding fathers of the European Union, founding father of the European integration. The group was founded by

Guy Verhofstadt Guy Maurice Marie Louise Verhofstadt (; ; born 11 April 1953) is a Belgian politician who served as the prime minister of Belgium from 1999 to 2008. He was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Belgium from 2009 until 2024. He was a me ...

, former head of the liberal

Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE; , ADLE) was a transnational alliance between two European political parties, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party and the European Democratic Party. ALDE had political ...

(ALDE) group in the Parliament and honorary president of the

(UEF) in Belgium, former co-chair of the

Greens–European Free Alliance The Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) is a political group of the European Parliament composed primarily of Green politics, green political parties. The group consists of European Green Party (EGP), part of the European Free Allianc ...

(Greens/EFA) group Daniel Cohn-Bendit, French MEP Sylvie Goulard (ALDE) and former EP Vice President

Isabelle Durant Isabelle Annie J. Durant (born 4 September 1954) is a Belgian politician of the Ecolo party who served as Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) from 2017 to 2021 and as acting Secretary-Genera ...

(Greens/EFA), with the support of the Union of European Federalists.

Federalists' movements

The Spinelli Group is not the first initiative launched in the European Parliament, gathering together followers of European federalism ideas. On 9 July 1980, the Crocodile Club a group of MEPs was founded by Altiero Spinelli himself. For more than 60 years, the Union of European Federalists (UEF) and its youth organisation Young European Federalists (JEF), with a "belief that only a European Federation, based on the idea of unity in diversity, could overcome the division of the European continent", have been actively working to promote the idea of European federalism. MEP

Andrew Duff Andrew Nicholas Duff (born 25 December 1950) is a British politician who presided over the Union of European Federalists (UEF) from 2008 to 2013. A member of the Liberal Democrats, he served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the ...

and president of UEF has welcomed the launching of the Spinelli Group saying, that "existing federalist forces and organisations, such as the UEF and the Intergroup, welcome this new initiative".

Manifesto

With a manifesto online, recalling the Ventotene Manifesto written by Altiero Spinelli, Group activists call members of the European Parliament and Europe's citizens to sign it and add their names to the list of those fighting against nationalism and

intergovernmentalism In international relations, intergovernmentalism treats states (and national governments in particular) as the primary actors in the integration process. Intergovernmentalist approaches claim to be able to explain both periods of radical change i ...

. By supporting the aims and principles laid out in the manifesto, Spinelli group followers try to speed up the process of

European integration European integration is the process of political, legal, social, regional and economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe, or nearby. European integration has primarily but not exclusively come about through the European Union ...

and promote a federal Europe.

Members

The Spinelli Group is organised in three sections. * The Steering Group gathers the 33 founding members and newcomers—politicians and thinkers dedicated to building a federal Europe. * The MEP Spinelli Group gathers 108

MEPs A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Comm ...

who signed the manifesto. They look for strategies and majorities in the European Parliament to push the pro-European, federal, and post-national agenda. * The Spinelli Network Group is made of every citizen who signed the manifesto of the Spinelli Group. As of 8 May 2017, they are 7,327. They participate in debates and fora. This pro-European initiative is supported by prominent political leaders such as former Commission President

Jacques Delors Jacques Lucien Jean Delors (; 20 July 192527 December 2023) was a French politician who served as the eighth president of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995. Delors played a key role in the creation of the single market, the euro and th ...

, former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, former competition commissioner

Mario Monti Mario Monti (; born 19 March 1943) is an Italian politician, economist and academic who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from 2011 to 2013, leading a Technocratic government (Italy), technocratic government in the wake of the European sov ...

and MEP

, President of the Union of European Federalists (UEF), and other well known public bodies. It is also enthusiastically supported by such European Union promoters as former European Parliament President Pat Cox and current Parliament Vice-President

(Greens/EFA; Belgium). The 35 members of the Steering Group in 2010 were: *

* Joschka Fischer * Pat Cox * Róża Thun * Kalypso Nicolaïdis *

Danuta Hübner Danuta Maria Hübner (, or ; born 8 April 1948) is a Polish politician, diplomat, and economist and Member of the European Parliament. She was European Commissioner for Regional Policy from 22 November 2004 until 4 July 2009, when she resigned t ...

* Gesine Schwan * Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa *

Élie Barnavi Élie Barnavi (; born 1946) is an Israeli historian and diplomat, who was the Israeli ambassador to France between 2000 and 2002. Born in Bucharest he moved as a child to Tel Aviv, Israel. He authored some fifteen books on France and Europe in t ...

* Jean-Marc Ferry *

Ulrich Beck Ulrich Beck (; 15 May 1944 – 1 January 2015) was a German sociologist, and one of the most cited social scientists in the world during his lifetime. His work focused on questions of uncontrollability, Sociology of scientific ignorance, ignora ...

Amartya Sen Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher. Sen has taught and worked in England and the United States since 1972. In 1998, Sen received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions ...

Elmar Brok Elmar Peter Brok (born 14 May 1946) is a German politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1980 until 2019. He was the chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs from 1999-2007 and from 2012-2017. He i ...

*Tibor Dessewffy * Sandro Gozi *Pawel Swieboda *Kurt Vandenberghe * * Anna Triandafyllidou * Diogo Pinto * Heather Grabbe *Imola Streho * *

* Daniel Cohn Bendit * Sylvie Goulard *

*Koert Debeuf *Edouard Gaudot *Guillaume McLaughlin *Mychelle Rieu * Monica Frassoni *Pier-Virgilio Dastoli After the

2024 European Parliament election The 2024 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 6 and 9 June 2024. It was the tenth Elections to the European Parliament, parliamentary election since the 1979 European Parliament election, first direct electio ...

the Spinelli Group has 81 members of which 79 are MEPs.

References

External links

*
Union of European Federalists website
{{Europarl European Parliament Eurofederalism Federalism by country

Federalists' movements

Manifesto

Members

See also

References

External links