Ventotene Manifesto

The Ventotene Manifesto (Italian: Manifesto di Ventotene), officially entitled For a Free and United Europe. A Draft Manifesto (Per un'Europa libera e unita. Progetto d'un manifesto), is a political statement written by Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi, and Eugenio Colorni,^[1][2] while they were imprisoned on the Italian islet Santo Stefano of the island of Ventotene during World War II. Completed in June 1941, the manifesto was circulated within the Italian Resistance, and it soon became the programme of the Movimento Federalista Europeo. It called for a socialist federation of Europe and the world. In the text, European federalism and world federalism are presented as a way to prevent future wars. Vayssière notes that the manifesto is widely seen as the birth of European federalism. Spinelli, who was later elected to the European Parliament within the Italian Communist Party lists, became a leader of the federalist movement due to his primary authorship of the Manifesto and his postwar advocacy. The manifesto called for a break with Europe's past to form a new political system through a restructuring of politics and extensive social reform. It was presented not as an ideal, but as the best option for Europe's postwar condition.^[3]