The Crocodile Club initiative was initially met with scepticism by the popular , socialist , liberal , communist and conservative political groups in Parliament and with hostility from governments and the Commission , because :
• the Treaties of Rome did not give Parliament a constitutional power of initiative ;
• many believed that new policies could provide answers to issues , without changing the Treaties ;
• the more ‘ daring ’ of the MEPs were proposing to ask , or rather , beg the Council to propose certain changes to the functioning of the institutions and to submit them to an intergovernmental conference for approval .
Over the months , the innovative realism of the Crocodile Club initiative prevailed over the scepticism of political groups and the hostility of governments , thanks also to the action of some European leaders in all Member States , and provoked growing interest , even outside of Parliament . From October 1980 to June 1983 , the Crocodile Club initiative published a regular newsletter , addressed to MEPs , ‘ Crocodile : lettre aux membres du Parlement européen ’, produced by Altiero Spinelli , Felice Ippolito and Pier Virgilio Dastoli , with organisational assistance from Viviane Schmit . The newsletters were published in all the official languages of the European Communities , and 10 000 copies of each were disseminated throughout Europe .
The Crocodile newsletter was again published from 1989 to 1995 in support of the Parliamentary intergroup for the European Union , which was created by nine MEPs as the successor to the Crocodile Club and which promoted the creation of intergroups in other national parliaments . This initiative produced a consultative referendum in Italy on the conferment of a constituent mandate to
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