‘ The absolute sovereignty of these national states has led to the desire of each to dominate over the others , since they feel threatened by their strength , and each nation feels the need for increasingly vast territories as part of their « living space » to guarantee their right to free movement and self-sufficiency , without needing to rely on others . The only way to placate this desire for domination is through the hegemony of the strongest state over all the other subordinate nations . As a result , the state has turned from being the guardian of the freedom of its citizens into a master who has relegated all his subjects into servitude , and has every faculty at his disposal to make them as war effective as possible ’ 6 .
It is interesting to note that in the same years ( early 1940s ), at a time when the Second World War was still looming over the Old Continent , despite the different context in which they acted – the first in internal exil in Fascist Italy and the second in Algiers as a member of the Comité français de libération nationale and international broker among the allied powers – both Altiero Spinelli and Jean Monnet saw in the European federal union the only viable path to a peaceful Europe .
‘ The most pressing problem , without whose solution progress is merely an illusion , is the definitive abolition of the division of Europe into national , sovereign states . The collapse of most of the continent ’ s states under the German steamroller has already meant a common destiny for the people of Europe : they will either all succumb to Hitler ’ s dominion , or , after his fall , they will all enter a revolutionary crisis where they will not find themselves separated and defined by solid state structures .
People are in general far better disposed than in the past towards
6 . Altiero Spinelli , Ernesto Rossi , THE VENTOTENE MANIFESTO . For a Free and United Europe . A draft manifesto
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