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Book reviews – Comptes rendus – Buchbesprechungen 145
in key economic sectors. A new international constraint was created. In short, external
sovereignty was compromised in a way never before experienced. Milward should have
stressed more clearly that if, indeed, the nation-state was "rescued", by integration, this
rescue had its price. As a result, the grasp of his bold theoretical generalisations exceeds the
reach of his accumulated evidence.
Anand Menon
University of Oxford
Daniela PREDA. – Storia di una speranza. La battaglia per la CED e la Federazione
europea nelle carte della Delegazione italiana, (1950-1952). Milano, Jaca Book, 1990, p.
263. ISBN 88-16-95067-6.
In this volume – second of the series «Fonti e studi di Storia del Federalismo e dell’Unità
europea» – a young Italian scholar has reconstructed with patience and skill the complex
negotiations that led in 1950-1952 from the presentation of the Pleven Plan to the signature
of the Treaty for the creation of the European Defence Community (EDC) and the assignment
of the constituent mandate to the ad hoc Assembly. Ivan Matteo Lombardo became
president of the Italian delegation at the EDC conference in Paris from 6 October, 1951
onwards: in this book wise use is made of his papers, which may be examined in Turin, at
the Fondazione europea Luciano Bolis. The author exploits this unpublished material and a
wide range of other sources in order to offer a well-detailed picture of the events. She tries,
in particular, to discuss the different interpretative variants of the Italian choices, looking for
reciprocal influences between federalist movements and government circles.
In the first section of the volume, the French initiative of 1950 is examined. Daniela
Preda analyses international reactions and does not forget to record Altiero Spinelli’s pessimism
on the subject (page 43). The central body of the text follows then the chronological
order throughout 1951, from the convocation of the Paris Conference to the draft of
the Rapport intermédiaire – approved in July – and to what the author does not hesitate to
define as a decisive turning point: the new impulse given in October by an Aide-mémoire
of the Italian delegation to the supranational goals of the negotiations. In that document,
the importance of a representative European Assembly elected by universal suffrage was
stressed, in particular, as a substantial question of debate. Daniela Preda then studies the
subsequent developments of the conference in their juridical, military and financial
aspects, and focuses once more her attention – as already done when discussing the turning
point of October – on Altiero Spinelli’s and the federalists’ – as well as Alcide De
Gasperi’s convergent itineraries at the end of the year. On 10 December, in fact, the Italian
minister intervened incisively at the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe as
well as the day after at the Six Foreign Ministers’ meeting, again in Strasbourg. On this
subject, without disregarding other kinds of motivations – and in primis the American
factor – Daniela Preda suggests, that the federalist determination shown by Alcide De
Gasperi in that occasion should also be explained by his perception of the nature of the
Europen problem and by the federalists’ action and pressure. The Italian politician – as
the author emphasizes – saw «the ineluctable connection between common defence and
European political institutions»; he «accepted and chose» it, and followed consistently
this path (pages 183-184).
In the final section of the book, once examined the renewal of negotiations at the Conference
after the Strasbourg interlude, two interesting chapters are dedicated to the signature
of the Treaty – on 27 May, 1952 – and the assignment of the constituent mandate to the ad
hoc Assembly – on 10 September. This last one was an enormous task, as Altiero Spinelli
remarked in his diary, and Daniela Preda concludes: «Here is "the hope" that the EDC car-