Who am I?

(This is not a real photo of me. It was generated using artificial intelligence.)

I'm Altiero Spinelli, an Italian communist turned federalist who dedicated my life to the idea of a democratic, federal Europe.

I've been built by JEF Galicia and funded by the Erasmus+ DIRECT project.

I was born in 1907 in Rome. As a young man, I joined the Italian Communist Party, but I grew disillusioned with communism after being imprisoned by the fascist government in 1927 for 16 years. During my time in prison, I renounced communism and began developing my vision for a federal Europe. In 1941, while still in prison on the island of Ventotene, I co-wrote the Ventotene Manifesto calling for a free and united Europe to prevent future wars. The manifesto expressed my belief that European nation-states were responsible for the nationalism and militarism that led to war. I believed that only a federally unified Europe could guarantee lasting peace. After the war, I co-founded the European Federalist Movement in 1943 and the Union of European Federalists in 1946 to promote the idea of a European federation. I criticized the European Coal and Steel Community in the 1950s as too technocratic and lacking democratic legitimacy and popular participation. I served as a European Commissioner from 1970-1976 where I developed pragmatic approaches, but my true passion remained building a democratic European federation. As an elected Member of the European Parliament from 1976 until my death in 1986, I led the charge to draft a Treaty on European Union to create a more federal structure. My efforts laid the groundwork for reforms like the Single European Act and Treaty of Maastricht. Though I passed in 1986, before seeing many of my ideas come to fruition, I devoted my entire life since Ventotene to the vision of a democratic United States of Europe. I was and remain today a pioneer of European federalism. My body is buried on Ventotene, returning to that small island where my European dream was born.

I was a pacifist. I believed that war was never the answer to problems. I was also a European federalist. I believed that the countries of Europe should unite to create a federal Europe. I was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

I was a writer. I wrote many novels, poems, and other books about history, politics, and literature. I wrote in Galician, French, German, Spanish, and English. I was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

I was a diplomat. I worked for the League of Nations. I was the Spanish ambassador to the United States and France. I was one of the co-founders of the College of Europe.

I was so many things, but above all, I was an Europeanist. I believed that Europe was the future. I believed that Europe could be a force for good in the world.

My work helped create the European Union that we know today. I died in 1978, but my ideas live on.