After its first elections, despite its newly gained democratic legitimacy, the European Parliament still had only limited powers. Many people were dissatisfied with this situation, and several outspoken members sought to push for change immediately, if not through legislation, then in practice. For example, broadening the budgetary powers of the chamber became a means of influencing a growing number of policy areas. Key among these political brokers was Altiero Spinelli, who had been a proponent of European unity since the 1940s.
In 1941, while imprisoned on the tiny island of Ventotene, Spinelli and a number of other opponents of Fascism had drafted a manifesto for a federal Europe. As the war raged around them, it was clear that the international system could not go back to the status quo ante once World War II was over. Later, Spinelli went on to become a European Commissioner, and ran as a candidate to the European Parliament in 1979. At the head of the Crocodile Club, named after the Strasbourg restaurant where its members gathered, Spinelli put forward a Draft Treaty Establishing a European Union, a Federalist-minded text adopted by the European Parliament in February 1984. The political stakes of the impending election became very high.
In June 1984, Greece was able to vote as a new Member State for the first time. With a turnout of 59 %, Pierre Pflimlin from France was elected president of the institution, becoming the first former Prime Minister of a Member State to lead the European Parliament. Charles Henry Plumb, from the UK, was then president from 1987. Since Spain and Portugal joined the European Community halfway through the parliamentary term, a partial election was envisaged for them in 1987. Although the Member States ultimately did not endorse the Draft Treaty Establishing a European Union, the text paved the way for groundbreaking developments to come, such as the approval of the European Single Act and, ultimately, the creation of the European Union.
Vassoio di Ventotene by Ernesto Rossi, 1940, Istituto Storico Toscano della Resistenza e dell’Età contemporanea - Archivio Nello Traquandi. This artwork, a wedding gift from Rossi to his nephew, depicts life in the penal colony on the island of Ventotene where Altiero Spinelli and other inmates drafted the Federalist Manifesto.
