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David Sassoli has best interpreted the great Italian tradition of Europeanism, which had in Giuseppe Mazzini, Vincenzo Gioberti, Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto G. Rossi, the highest and most concrete theoretical and political expressions of the contemporary age. Europe means democracy, therefore freedom, social justice, solidarity among the peoples and within the peoples that make up the European Union. It means building and looking upwards towards peace.

The failure of the Constitutional Treaty has merely shown what was there for all to see in terms of the evolution of the European societies & the transition from the generic project of a United Europe to the specific project of a European Union. The main obstacle in the road towards European unification stems from the internal divisions of the European states & the fact that European political leaders are quite incapable of telling their electors what are the real strategic possibilities of European societies. The failure of the Constitutional Treaty is a positive contribution to bring this strategic issue to the forefront where it belongs. Adapted from the source document.

Examines ramification of the European Union (EU) Constitution in context of enlargement with ten new members, division of power between the EU and the Member States, and controversy in Portugal on Article 10 no. 1 regarding primacy of European law over national law. Summaries in English p. 142-3.

Since the 1970's, with the European Communities first enlargement & the accession of Denmark, Ireland & the United Kingdom, two visions of Europe have dominated the debate on the European project: on the one hand, the "French vision" of a European state that should become an international pole of power & where the nations would submit to central collective government; on the other, the "English vision" of a Europe with economic, trade & financial power, a pole of stability the security of which should be embedded in the transatlantic alliance. In the past there was no real participation in the process of European integration but this "sleepwalking" has come to an end with the choice of the referenda as the method for the ratification of the Constitutional Treaty. Adapted from the source document.