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Today we are going to talk about the first term of the European Parliament, elected directly by universal suffrage. The above term began in June 1979 and ended in June 1984, thanks to the great initiative we are going to talk about in this episode, that is, the so-called “Treaty Project that constitutes the European Union” and that can be considered- in a certain sense- as the father of the European Constitution. All throughout those five years, that represent an important part of the history of Europe, but also of the world history, we can observe some important events. The first one is related to the fact that in 1979 the European Community is a little bit tired. The domestic trade, that is the area within which there should be a free circulation of goods, people, services and capital, had not been created yet and- more specifically- Europe seemed to be, in that particular moment- as the great economist Michel Albert defined it- a sort of “Big under developing area”, especially with respect to more dynamic areas, such as the United States and Japan. Therefore, there were two needs: to relaunch the process of European integration and to make the European economics more competitive. It is exactly the latter item that the European Parliament decides to draw the public and Governments’ attention to, by saying that both things, that is the market creation and the competitiveness of the European economics, could be possible only by reinforcing the institutional system and, as a consequence, by allowing the European Community to make its own decisions on the basis of its citizens’ consensus. On the basis of such considerations the European Parliament decides to reform the European institutions, inspired and prompted by the great father of Europe, Mr. Altiero Spinelli. So the Parliament draws a sort of European constitution, that was not called “constitution”, but was called, by the end of a period of work that lasted up to February 1984, "Treaty Project that constitutes the European Union". The second fundamental issue of this lapse of time is that the tensions between the Eastern and Western countries of the world become more and more serious and deep: the tension between the Soviet block and the great transatlantic coalition that put together the United States and Western Europe. It is during this period that they begin thinking about the best way to make the western countries more reactive with respect to the eastern countries. This is a big debate, that divides also the European countries and the political parties, and that is connected to the Euromissiles issue, that is to the possibility to install some nuclear missiles in Western Europe, in order to cope with any possible attack by the Soviet Union. A conclusion is reached during those years, with the agreement of Germany, France, the United States, Belgium and of all the European nations to install these euromissiles in order to face any attack from the Soviet Union. This tension clearly highlights an important issue, which is the fact that Europe can define its own strategies and interests within a changing world define independently from the United States. Therefore, also in this case, as in the previous discussion I mentioned before, concerning economics and the European institutions, the European Parliament can be considered as a great forum, within which political leaders take the podium, starting from the French President François Mitterand, to ask for the attention and the consensus from the public opinion, on the great issues concerning the world and Europe in general. The term ended in 1984, with the approval of Spinelli’s project, but it ends also with another important event: in 1981 Greece (finally free from the colonels’ regime) becomes a member of the European Community and then Spain and Portugal (the first one free from the Francoist dictatorship and the latter from Salazar’s) become member states too. The European democracy expands and consolidates.
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