It is in the context of the turbulent history of the 20th century that the significance of Spinelli's political design must be interpreted yet today, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth, it is not enough to view him simply as a protagonist of those years. He was the founder of a new political movement: namely, the movement for European unity. For this reason he can be defined as an "historical man". According to Hegel, historical men "are those who first expressed what men want". They are not philosophers, but "men of action". They "know and want their work, because it corresponds to the age".
In the summer of 1941, when Spinelli together with Ernesto Rossi wrote the Ventotene Manifesto, the document which defines his action plan for the United States of Europe, Hitler's swastika flags were waving all over the European continent. After the occupation of France, German troops were attacking the Soviet Union, but the founders of European federalism, though confined on Ventotene, were able to see beyond the apparent horizon and glimpse the future of post-war Europe's development.
It is true that the Spinelli's plan for a European federation is still unaccomplished. Overcoming the crisis of the nation-state through the construction of European unity requires long-term processes of such a complex nature that to achieve them takes longer than any man's natural life-span. Today however, 100 years after Spinelli's birth and 50 years after the creation of the European Community, we can assert that a considerable part of Spinelli's project has been achieved. That he has been admitted into the Pantheon of the Founding Fathers is shown by the fact that one European Parliament building is dedicated to him. The European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Court of Justice, the European Central Bank now regulate what were once considered the domestic affairs of the nation-states. The powerful growth of European unification highlights the erosion of states' sovereignty and fosters the strengthening of economic, monetary, social and environmental competences at the EU level.
It is in the field of political action that Spinelli's work made a really innovatory impact. He defined the strategy to achieve the European federation. This objective has a dual nature. On the one hand, it is a treaty in which states agree to give up part of their power to a supranational government, and on the other it is a Constitution defining the structure of this union of states. Since the nature of the objective determines the character of the means to be used, Spinelli concluded that progress towards the construction of a European federation would not be possible without the agreement of the states, even though the latter represent the main obstacle to the transfer of powers to the European level.
The model of the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention was constantly in his mind. Following this example, Spinelli specified the characteristics of the constituent method which he saw as the only procedure possible for the successful construction of a European democratic power. It required on the one hand a European constituent assembly representing all the peoples and political forces of Europe. This would be the only body entitled to draft and propose a Constitution with the legitimacy deriving from its democratic composition. On the other hand, as a democratic assembly it would take its decisions publicly and by majority vote together with procedures permitting a clear identification of responsibilities and therefore enabling democratic and productive decision-making. This is, namely, the opposite of the diplomatic method in which decisions are reached in secret and by unanimity: a process which protects national sovereignty and leads to compromises that have to take the individual interests of every participating state into account.
When the first European institutions were established, Spinelli's strategic goal became the bestowal of the constitutional mandate on the parliamentary bodies which were a significant aspect of those institutions. On the basis of this constitutional strategy, Spinelli twice succeeded in bringing Europe to the threshold of a federal union. First, he tried to put the European army - in course of construction between 1951 and 1954 - under a European political power. Second, in 1984, as a member of the European Parliament he tried again with the draft Treaty of European Union. In both cases it was a parliamentary body - the enlarged Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Parliament - that drafted the constitutional document. And in both cases the constitutional project was defeated by a single government: France in the first instance, and then Britain.
The Convention summoned in 2001 to frame a European Constitution was the most recent incarnation of Spinelli's constitutional strategy, though at the same time it contained an innovatory element, namely a constitutional procedure based on co-decision between associated national and European institutions and their governmental and parliamentary organs. On the one hand, member states' governments recognized that Spinelli was right in thinking it is unrealistic to entrust an intergovernmental conference (IGC) with the task of drafting a Constitution for the people's representatives are essential to the process.
On the other hand, any attempt to eliminate the influence of national governments from the drafting of institutional reforms is wishful thinking and destined to fail. A federal Constitution is a pact between both states and citizens. This means that governments and parliaments, national and European institutions, are indispensable partners in the constitutional process.
The limitation of the constitutional revision procedure - as regulated by art. 443 of the Constitutional Treaty and now confirmed by inter-governmental agreement - lies in the fact that the IGC, deciding by unanimity, has the last word as regards ratification. This rule compels the EU to proceed at the speed of the slowest of the 27 member states.
This is the main problem to be resolved by a new Convention. A qualified majority of member states should be sufficient to pass constitutional revisions. As Britain and Poland have opted out of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights - a genuine constitutional matter - it may be ventured that similar decisions might in future also be taken concerning other elements of a comprehensive project for a European Constitution.
If Spinelli were among us addressing the limits of the Reform Treaty today, he would say: "Never mind, let us go ahead, convene a new Convention". In the past, the rejection of the European Defence Community provided the premise for the EEC. Likewise, after the rejection of the Treaty of European Union, the adoption of the Single European Act created the conditions for Monetary Union. The Reform Treaty which will replace the European Constitution, however inadequately, nevertheless represents a step forward which can raise expectations and generate pressures likely to compel governments to consider more advanced solutions regarding the governance of the European economy, the unification of foreign and security policy, and majority voting in respect of constitutional revision.