Post by W Hall on Jun 26, 2013 2:11:30 GMT -5
This is the linguistically corrected original text for Giulietto’s contribution to the Capodistrias-Spinelli-Europe meeting held on the island of Aegina on 23rd June 2013. www.discoveraegina.gr/en/aegina-blog/2429/
At the meeting that actually took place, Giulietto Chiesa spoke impromptu in Italian rather than following a written English text, but the content of his speech was along the same general lines, though with less detail.
Dear friends of Europe and citizens of Greece,
We are here, on the wonderful island of Aegina, to celebrate ideas that have been very seriously offended and almost completely destroyed in the last 25 years or so.
No, I want to to be more precise: those ideas are still existing and living, but have been forgotten by those who took the power in Europe. They have not been elected by anyone. They have been nominated. We have yet to understand how this happened without our knowledge. And who are those who have appointed a group of butlers as our rulers?
This will be a very hard task.
I want to recall two fundamental points, which were at the basis, at the origin of the European idea, at the very beginning of the Ventotene Manifesto, written by Altiero Spinelli. Essentially there were two of them: two very simple words. Peace and cooperation. Neither of the two now exists as a fundamental principle of Europe, of the European Union.
Immediately after the very beginning of the process, the Cold War began, and the European idea of peace and cooperation was twisted and diverted. Cooperation was replaced by the word competition. The peaceful process of building a new European state without war was gradually distorted with ideas of a divisive “cooperation”. That is of cooperation only among a part of the European community, leaving outside a big chunk of European culture, history and tradition.
Well, we know that there were compelling reasons for that. The Western world was divided in two big camps by Yalta, and those who found themselves on this side congregated against the other camp. This particular condition was, to a certain stage, almost unavoidable. But it had a very serious influence on the further developments of the process.
After 1989 the historical divide was closed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Europe became almost fully re-united. No enemy, at first glance, was there to menace our future. But the process had taken a turn for the worse. There are ten countries in the Euro zone, with powerful divisions between them. There are very rich countries and very poor countries. Solidarity doesn’t exist any more. Another 17 countries are outside the Euro zone, some of them completely forgotten by the others. Some others would like to join this Europe, because they still hope to find a decent place here, but others don’t even like the idea. People inside Europe don’t take part in European elections because they don’t know what Europe is, in fact. They are emotionally psychologically, institutionally unrelated to Europe. Euro-skeptics are growing in number and strenth. Why this has been happening for the last 20 years?
Certainly one of the tasks was fulfilled: Europe has been living in peace for 68 consecutive years. It is a very good result. We did not fight against each other in conventional war; we did not kill anybody using our weapons. But a war, a big war, even if not declared, has been waged. Against the peoples. The first victim was Greece and the Greek people. Other peoples are on the road to destruction, to deprivation of their fundamental rights.
The planetary club with a totalitarian vocation is destroying the people of Europe, our lives, our democracy, our freedom. Our future is in deep danger. Gradually, without realizing it, we were delivered into the hands of an oligarchy without a home and without a soul, whose only bond is the delusion of omnipotence resulting from the possession of money that it infinitely creates.
Those who have led us to this impasse are the butlers of the "universal owners": the shareholders of banks, funds and international corporations, people that none of us know, that no one has ever elected, but that determine our lives. They, supported by parliaments formally elected but in fact appointed by higher-powers, delivered the political and economic power - once held by the governments - to entities devoid of any democratic legitimacy. These structures are the scaffolding of a new world order under construction. This is an authoritarian and subversive hypothesis that very few, who are already hugely rich, want to impose on already impoverished masses. It’s an aberrant design that is based on the illusion of infinite growth and which is intended to produce chaos and war, because it refuses to see the end of the era of abundance.
They are aware of the growth of popular protest and rebellion, and are prepared to repress it. They know about the precariousness of the deception with which they have assumed power; they know that their alleged economic and monetary laws are a global scam. They know that the virtual money that they use to dominate is destined to end up in ashes. For this reason they destabilize any democratic institutions left, introduce new laws to neutralize us, as they get ready to put their hands on any material wealth still available: territories, water, food, factories, savings, history, monuments, "human resources". If we do not stop them, they will continue to buy these resources at bargain prices, privatizing with the immense mass of virtual money, turning it all into debt they are creating from nothing at an incredible rate.
In the end the whole populations will remain- that is, all of us - reduced to poverty, ignorance and slavery, that is, without property and without rights and therefore no future. Greece is the practical example of a strategy already in place. This is a portrait of what remains of the European project of peace and well-being.
That project was first stopped and then distorted beyond recognition. It was the good idea of building a new supranational state without recourse to conquest, violence and war, but with the participation with equal rights of all partners, large and small. It should have been the birth of a new world leader for peace, able to play an independent role and not subordinated to the politics and to the interests of the other giants. Such an objective could only be achieved by putting Europe on the same scale size of the Soviet Union and the United States. Not in competition with them but in a geopolitical equal relationship.
This design has been deleted. In a covert struggle for dominance, Europe has been bent by the political, military, and economic hegemony of the United States. The dominance of the dollar as a currency-power has literally allowed them to subject Europe to NATO's military plans.. Then, with the final defeat of the Soviet Union and its collapse, to impose on the rest of the world the Wall Street and the City of London “monetary service”.
The instruments put in place since 1990 that have produced the social and economic crisis of the European peoples have not been side effects of “wrong” choices. They were consistent with the intended project, which is the global Troika’s apartheid.
American globalization has been imposed on Europe (and European leaders have accepted and adopted it). American rules were exported along with the deregulation, privatization, demolition of states, the deification of markets, the radical transformation of human relationships, and the subjugation of politics to economy and money . Political power has passed into the hands of internationalized high finance.
The enlargement of the EU to 27 countries, with the inclusion of almost all former satellites of the Warsaw Pact and even the three former Soviet Baltic republics, was in fact preceded by their sudden inclusion into NATO, thereby guaranteeing the United States the direct and indirect control of the subsequent processes of European integration. The true rulers are seeking spasmodically to introduce the culture, values and stereotypes of the “American way of life” into the socio-economic European fabric. The progressive control and concentration of the industry of mass communication and information, the monstrous expansion of social networks, has produced a real anthropological modification of the European peoples, although the deep currents of European history have shown unexpected ability in defending themselves against numerous and differentiated technological and ideological aggressions.
The explosion of the crisis, which occurred right in the centre of imperial power (thus expressing a very serious illness internal to it, combined with the progressive depletion of available resources and with the appearance on the scene of other giants no longer related to the design of “universal owners”) revealed the fragility of their project.
It is therefore urgently necessary to stop them. Firstly, because they are the producers of poverty and war. Millions of Europeans, now virtually every social class, with the exception of a few hired to play the role of privileged servants (and, among these are the main controllers of information-communication) are looking for an alternative to the growing unsustainability of their social status. There is increasing concern and uncertainty, the feeling of impending danger. It is commonly accepted that the next generation will be the first -from World War II to the present – to have life prospects worse than those of their parents. But there is a long road ahead for “many” to come to understand that not it is not only their standard of life that is at risk. In fact their lives and those of their children are also at risk. And mankind as a whole has the same fate in store for them, because those at the summit of power will, in turn, extend their robbery to the other six billion people populating the planet. They can no longer get away with it as they have done over the last three centuries, because the people are becoming shrewd - in fact some have already begun to awaken - the people are learning to defend themselves and fight back.
For millions of Europeans it is time to reject a so-called new world order that is in reality a new feudalism, in which only an infinitesimal part of the human race will have the power of life and death over all, and in which people’s only way out will be submission. Liberal democracy has already been irreparably damaged and was, along with human rights, the only alternative value to the power of money which was a bulwark of so-called “Western civilization.”
It’s now time to stop the “monkey in command.” And to take away from his hands the buttons of war. No European soldier should participate in any conflicts outside the borders of the European Union, much less so if it is disguised as a humanitarian mission for peace.
There is a need to begin to define the principles and values that are suitable for the transition from an unsustainable economic and social organization - destined to die in convulsions - to a sustainable society, at peace with nature, with the ecosystem. A civilization of coexistence, which progresses “with the pace of Man”, and is democratic. These are the conditions for survival.
Rebuilding European Institutions
The next few years will be decisive for the fate of the peoples of Europe. The European leaders have launched an attack whose primary effect is to demolish the European project of peace. The constitutional trajectory they have covered was meant to prevent people from expressing themselves. The butlers have failed in terms of legitimacy and democracy. They say they want a federation of nation states, and at the same time pointing to substantial changes that tend to bind the states that did not agree. Measurements so important may not be raised without or against the consent of the people.
There must be a counter offensive against this aggression, starting immediately as a constitutional process for the new Europe.
We believe in a Europe of solidarity, peace, polycentric, integrated, based on the idea of a defense of the common good of Europe, and operating to overcome the social and economic disparities.
This Europe must have a democratic government, and a central bank that implements the policy of such a government, not vice versa. The states that decide to be part of this new Europe must not be regarded as minority stakeholders of a company. They must be sovereign states that delegate some of their sovereignty only and exclusively to a higher level of government that is as democratic as those they will be called upon to coordinate.
The acceptance of this new Europe will be decided by the people. It is by them, and only by them, via referendum, that the final decision on accession will be made.
The constitutional process must be organized by the existing European institutions, but with participation, at all stages, from civil society, local communities, and the national parliaments. The European Parliament, the only institution that is currently subject to input from below, must play a decisive role following the European elections scheduled for next year, 2014.
It will be necessary to promote the formation of a European Constituent Assembly (ACE), to be composed of a) the representatives of the 27 national parliaments, b) the European Parliament, c) the Heads of State and Government, d) the European Commission. In parallel to the work of the ACE there must be legal provision (recognizing its consultative value) for the establishment of a Constituent Assembly for the European Social Forum (FSCE), composed of associations, groups, committees, political parties, trade unions, local self-government and government institutions of the underlying layers of civil society and politics. The task of the FSCE will be to evaluate the progress of the work of the ACE, but above all to promote media initiatives - social, political, cognitive and informational - to bring the constitutional work to the centre of attention in European public debate.
European citizens shouldn’t have to find themselves - as in the process that led to the Treaty of Lisbon – confronted by hundreds of pages of text written in language incomprehensible to non-specialists, with the result that nothing was discussed because nothing had been made understandable. Crucial decisions were therefore taken by a handful of people, without popular consent.
The task of the ACE will be to define the constitutional principles, the powers to be conferred on the Union, the principles of representation within the Union, that is, with internal rights and duties. The Treaty will have validity only for those who have given their consent to it. But it may also provide rules that will make it possible for the non-consenting to participate, together with others, in those aspects of community life to which they do consent.
The ACE will end when all the 27 states of origin ratify by referendum (and not by parliamentary pronunciamento) the statement on constitutional principles, the powers of the Union, the principles of representation. In the course of the referendum the citizens will elect their national representatives for a “Second Convention”, whose task will be to define the final fully elaborated text of the Constitution. . The second agreement may not under any circumstances deviate from the basic principles already defined or introduce new principles. Before bringing its findings for judgement by popular opinion, it will have to submit them to an already formed Constitutional Court, comprised of judges of the higher courts of each member state.
As this account has suggested, not all the peoples of Europe will necessarily agree to remaining members, and some of them may like to pause for reflection, retaining temporary relationships with the new Europe, depending on their needs and/or the constraints imposed on them by their own Constitutions, if these are deemed incompatible with what has begun to emerge from the process described above.
The European Commission should be abolished. The European Council and the European Council of Ministers, in the course of a five-year transition period, will be required to converge through general reorganization towards a single European institution with greater commitment to Community policy in areas such as Foreign and Security Policy and Defence. Many policy areas currently within the competence of the European Council of Ministers will be returned to the nation states (giving life to the expression “Europe of Nations”) or assigned to the European Parliament.
The President of the European Council should be elected directly by European citizens.
An autonomous Europe will have a European defence system. We must return to the idea of people’s militia, leaving the professional armies and higher command to defend the people against natural and humanitarian emergencies and more generally committing them to socially useful activities.
The European Parliament must become the central democratic body of the European institutional framework, the place whose decisions are turned into fundamental policies for the continent as a whole. Looking ahead, at the end of the five-year transition, the European Parliament should become the only representative European political institution, with the mandate to form the European Government and remove it if it proves to be inadequate to the carrying out its functions.
More details: main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=111
At the meeting that actually took place, Giulietto Chiesa spoke impromptu in Italian rather than following a written English text, but the content of his speech was along the same general lines, though with less detail.
Dear friends of Europe and citizens of Greece,
We are here, on the wonderful island of Aegina, to celebrate ideas that have been very seriously offended and almost completely destroyed in the last 25 years or so.
No, I want to to be more precise: those ideas are still existing and living, but have been forgotten by those who took the power in Europe. They have not been elected by anyone. They have been nominated. We have yet to understand how this happened without our knowledge. And who are those who have appointed a group of butlers as our rulers?
This will be a very hard task.
I want to recall two fundamental points, which were at the basis, at the origin of the European idea, at the very beginning of the Ventotene Manifesto, written by Altiero Spinelli. Essentially there were two of them: two very simple words. Peace and cooperation. Neither of the two now exists as a fundamental principle of Europe, of the European Union.
Immediately after the very beginning of the process, the Cold War began, and the European idea of peace and cooperation was twisted and diverted. Cooperation was replaced by the word competition. The peaceful process of building a new European state without war was gradually distorted with ideas of a divisive “cooperation”. That is of cooperation only among a part of the European community, leaving outside a big chunk of European culture, history and tradition.
Well, we know that there were compelling reasons for that. The Western world was divided in two big camps by Yalta, and those who found themselves on this side congregated against the other camp. This particular condition was, to a certain stage, almost unavoidable. But it had a very serious influence on the further developments of the process.
After 1989 the historical divide was closed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Europe became almost fully re-united. No enemy, at first glance, was there to menace our future. But the process had taken a turn for the worse. There are ten countries in the Euro zone, with powerful divisions between them. There are very rich countries and very poor countries. Solidarity doesn’t exist any more. Another 17 countries are outside the Euro zone, some of them completely forgotten by the others. Some others would like to join this Europe, because they still hope to find a decent place here, but others don’t even like the idea. People inside Europe don’t take part in European elections because they don’t know what Europe is, in fact. They are emotionally psychologically, institutionally unrelated to Europe. Euro-skeptics are growing in number and strenth. Why this has been happening for the last 20 years?
Certainly one of the tasks was fulfilled: Europe has been living in peace for 68 consecutive years. It is a very good result. We did not fight against each other in conventional war; we did not kill anybody using our weapons. But a war, a big war, even if not declared, has been waged. Against the peoples. The first victim was Greece and the Greek people. Other peoples are on the road to destruction, to deprivation of their fundamental rights.
The planetary club with a totalitarian vocation is destroying the people of Europe, our lives, our democracy, our freedom. Our future is in deep danger. Gradually, without realizing it, we were delivered into the hands of an oligarchy without a home and without a soul, whose only bond is the delusion of omnipotence resulting from the possession of money that it infinitely creates.
Those who have led us to this impasse are the butlers of the "universal owners": the shareholders of banks, funds and international corporations, people that none of us know, that no one has ever elected, but that determine our lives. They, supported by parliaments formally elected but in fact appointed by higher-powers, delivered the political and economic power - once held by the governments - to entities devoid of any democratic legitimacy. These structures are the scaffolding of a new world order under construction. This is an authoritarian and subversive hypothesis that very few, who are already hugely rich, want to impose on already impoverished masses. It’s an aberrant design that is based on the illusion of infinite growth and which is intended to produce chaos and war, because it refuses to see the end of the era of abundance.
They are aware of the growth of popular protest and rebellion, and are prepared to repress it. They know about the precariousness of the deception with which they have assumed power; they know that their alleged economic and monetary laws are a global scam. They know that the virtual money that they use to dominate is destined to end up in ashes. For this reason they destabilize any democratic institutions left, introduce new laws to neutralize us, as they get ready to put their hands on any material wealth still available: territories, water, food, factories, savings, history, monuments, "human resources". If we do not stop them, they will continue to buy these resources at bargain prices, privatizing with the immense mass of virtual money, turning it all into debt they are creating from nothing at an incredible rate.
In the end the whole populations will remain- that is, all of us - reduced to poverty, ignorance and slavery, that is, without property and without rights and therefore no future. Greece is the practical example of a strategy already in place. This is a portrait of what remains of the European project of peace and well-being.
That project was first stopped and then distorted beyond recognition. It was the good idea of building a new supranational state without recourse to conquest, violence and war, but with the participation with equal rights of all partners, large and small. It should have been the birth of a new world leader for peace, able to play an independent role and not subordinated to the politics and to the interests of the other giants. Such an objective could only be achieved by putting Europe on the same scale size of the Soviet Union and the United States. Not in competition with them but in a geopolitical equal relationship.
This design has been deleted. In a covert struggle for dominance, Europe has been bent by the political, military, and economic hegemony of the United States. The dominance of the dollar as a currency-power has literally allowed them to subject Europe to NATO's military plans.. Then, with the final defeat of the Soviet Union and its collapse, to impose on the rest of the world the Wall Street and the City of London “monetary service”.
The instruments put in place since 1990 that have produced the social and economic crisis of the European peoples have not been side effects of “wrong” choices. They were consistent with the intended project, which is the global Troika’s apartheid.
American globalization has been imposed on Europe (and European leaders have accepted and adopted it). American rules were exported along with the deregulation, privatization, demolition of states, the deification of markets, the radical transformation of human relationships, and the subjugation of politics to economy and money . Political power has passed into the hands of internationalized high finance.
The enlargement of the EU to 27 countries, with the inclusion of almost all former satellites of the Warsaw Pact and even the three former Soviet Baltic republics, was in fact preceded by their sudden inclusion into NATO, thereby guaranteeing the United States the direct and indirect control of the subsequent processes of European integration. The true rulers are seeking spasmodically to introduce the culture, values and stereotypes of the “American way of life” into the socio-economic European fabric. The progressive control and concentration of the industry of mass communication and information, the monstrous expansion of social networks, has produced a real anthropological modification of the European peoples, although the deep currents of European history have shown unexpected ability in defending themselves against numerous and differentiated technological and ideological aggressions.
The explosion of the crisis, which occurred right in the centre of imperial power (thus expressing a very serious illness internal to it, combined with the progressive depletion of available resources and with the appearance on the scene of other giants no longer related to the design of “universal owners”) revealed the fragility of their project.
It is therefore urgently necessary to stop them. Firstly, because they are the producers of poverty and war. Millions of Europeans, now virtually every social class, with the exception of a few hired to play the role of privileged servants (and, among these are the main controllers of information-communication) are looking for an alternative to the growing unsustainability of their social status. There is increasing concern and uncertainty, the feeling of impending danger. It is commonly accepted that the next generation will be the first -from World War II to the present – to have life prospects worse than those of their parents. But there is a long road ahead for “many” to come to understand that not it is not only their standard of life that is at risk. In fact their lives and those of their children are also at risk. And mankind as a whole has the same fate in store for them, because those at the summit of power will, in turn, extend their robbery to the other six billion people populating the planet. They can no longer get away with it as they have done over the last three centuries, because the people are becoming shrewd - in fact some have already begun to awaken - the people are learning to defend themselves and fight back.
For millions of Europeans it is time to reject a so-called new world order that is in reality a new feudalism, in which only an infinitesimal part of the human race will have the power of life and death over all, and in which people’s only way out will be submission. Liberal democracy has already been irreparably damaged and was, along with human rights, the only alternative value to the power of money which was a bulwark of so-called “Western civilization.”
It’s now time to stop the “monkey in command.” And to take away from his hands the buttons of war. No European soldier should participate in any conflicts outside the borders of the European Union, much less so if it is disguised as a humanitarian mission for peace.
There is a need to begin to define the principles and values that are suitable for the transition from an unsustainable economic and social organization - destined to die in convulsions - to a sustainable society, at peace with nature, with the ecosystem. A civilization of coexistence, which progresses “with the pace of Man”, and is democratic. These are the conditions for survival.
Rebuilding European Institutions
The next few years will be decisive for the fate of the peoples of Europe. The European leaders have launched an attack whose primary effect is to demolish the European project of peace. The constitutional trajectory they have covered was meant to prevent people from expressing themselves. The butlers have failed in terms of legitimacy and democracy. They say they want a federation of nation states, and at the same time pointing to substantial changes that tend to bind the states that did not agree. Measurements so important may not be raised without or against the consent of the people.
There must be a counter offensive against this aggression, starting immediately as a constitutional process for the new Europe.
We believe in a Europe of solidarity, peace, polycentric, integrated, based on the idea of a defense of the common good of Europe, and operating to overcome the social and economic disparities.
This Europe must have a democratic government, and a central bank that implements the policy of such a government, not vice versa. The states that decide to be part of this new Europe must not be regarded as minority stakeholders of a company. They must be sovereign states that delegate some of their sovereignty only and exclusively to a higher level of government that is as democratic as those they will be called upon to coordinate.
The acceptance of this new Europe will be decided by the people. It is by them, and only by them, via referendum, that the final decision on accession will be made.
The constitutional process must be organized by the existing European institutions, but with participation, at all stages, from civil society, local communities, and the national parliaments. The European Parliament, the only institution that is currently subject to input from below, must play a decisive role following the European elections scheduled for next year, 2014.
It will be necessary to promote the formation of a European Constituent Assembly (ACE), to be composed of a) the representatives of the 27 national parliaments, b) the European Parliament, c) the Heads of State and Government, d) the European Commission. In parallel to the work of the ACE there must be legal provision (recognizing its consultative value) for the establishment of a Constituent Assembly for the European Social Forum (FSCE), composed of associations, groups, committees, political parties, trade unions, local self-government and government institutions of the underlying layers of civil society and politics. The task of the FSCE will be to evaluate the progress of the work of the ACE, but above all to promote media initiatives - social, political, cognitive and informational - to bring the constitutional work to the centre of attention in European public debate.
European citizens shouldn’t have to find themselves - as in the process that led to the Treaty of Lisbon – confronted by hundreds of pages of text written in language incomprehensible to non-specialists, with the result that nothing was discussed because nothing had been made understandable. Crucial decisions were therefore taken by a handful of people, without popular consent.
The task of the ACE will be to define the constitutional principles, the powers to be conferred on the Union, the principles of representation within the Union, that is, with internal rights and duties. The Treaty will have validity only for those who have given their consent to it. But it may also provide rules that will make it possible for the non-consenting to participate, together with others, in those aspects of community life to which they do consent.
The ACE will end when all the 27 states of origin ratify by referendum (and not by parliamentary pronunciamento) the statement on constitutional principles, the powers of the Union, the principles of representation. In the course of the referendum the citizens will elect their national representatives for a “Second Convention”, whose task will be to define the final fully elaborated text of the Constitution. . The second agreement may not under any circumstances deviate from the basic principles already defined or introduce new principles. Before bringing its findings for judgement by popular opinion, it will have to submit them to an already formed Constitutional Court, comprised of judges of the higher courts of each member state.
As this account has suggested, not all the peoples of Europe will necessarily agree to remaining members, and some of them may like to pause for reflection, retaining temporary relationships with the new Europe, depending on their needs and/or the constraints imposed on them by their own Constitutions, if these are deemed incompatible with what has begun to emerge from the process described above.
The European Commission should be abolished. The European Council and the European Council of Ministers, in the course of a five-year transition period, will be required to converge through general reorganization towards a single European institution with greater commitment to Community policy in areas such as Foreign and Security Policy and Defence. Many policy areas currently within the competence of the European Council of Ministers will be returned to the nation states (giving life to the expression “Europe of Nations”) or assigned to the European Parliament.
The President of the European Council should be elected directly by European citizens.
An autonomous Europe will have a European defence system. We must return to the idea of people’s militia, leaving the professional armies and higher command to defend the people against natural and humanitarian emergencies and more generally committing them to socially useful activities.
The European Parliament must become the central democratic body of the European institutional framework, the place whose decisions are turned into fundamental policies for the continent as a whole. Looking ahead, at the end of the five-year transition, the European Parliament should become the only representative European political institution, with the mandate to form the European Government and remove it if it proves to be inadequate to the carrying out its functions.
More details: main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=111
