V UEF European Congress

The documents of this Congress are archived in the Historical Archives of the European Union: they were digitised by the Team of the HAEU that we really thanks. The folder includes preliminary documents, speeches, reports, newspaper articles.

The entire folder can be viewed here: LINK

During the 5th UEF Congress, (Paris, 21-23 January 1955) the positions that would lead to the split of the UEF the following year matured.

Here, positions were distinctly clarified around the radical and maximalist tendency represented in particular by Spinelli and Marc and the realist and minimalist position of Friedländer and Brugmans. If they did not get as far as formalising the split, it was due to the fact that the European re-launch had not yet been clearly outlined and also to the intervention during the congress of the new president of the EM, Schuman. Despite the fact that not much later he would fully support that initiative that would eventually lead to the Treaties of Rome, at the Congress of Paris he affirmed on the other hand that the national governments and parliaments could no longer be counted on and that it was necessary to mobilise public opinion to allow the citizens of Europe to impose their will.

As a result, a political resolution of compromise was therefore approved with misleading unanimity, with the exception of five abstentions. This resolution stated that, in front of the change of the Europeanist policy of the governments, the UEF placed itself in opposition, indicating the constituent as a means for creating the supranational institutions necessary to resolve the problems common to all European people. [...] On the other hand, the congress, ahead of the strong contrasts which had emerged with regard to the concrete federalist actions to be carried out, had to refer any decision to a special commission entrusted with the preparation of a plan to mobilise public opinion. The definitive split developed around the formulation and interpretation of this action plan, prepared by a commission formed by Dieter Roser (EUD), Belgian Jacques Spacy and Spinelli (after he had discussed the matter with the leaders of the movements of the six countries of the ‘‘Little Europe’’)

(1946-1974 | The UEF from the foundation to the decision on direct election of the European parliament by Sergio Pistone, pag. 104)