Paneuropa and Antieuropa. Two visions of Europe and international politics between Fascism and Democracy

The idea of a union between European states has been variously hypothesized over the centuries. Was an Austrian diplomat, Nikolaus Richard de Coudenhove Kalergi, to ignited the debate for a concrete political proposal with the publication of Paneuropa in the XX century. In this work he affirmed that the prosperity of the continent would have to pass through the union of its States in a federal-style structure, with consequent demolition of customs and political barriers. Kalergi's ideas had the merit of including the Europeanist theme in the political debate of those years. In fact, on 5 September 1929, in a speech to the assembly of the League of Nations, the French president Aristide Briand affirmed that the birth of a European supranational institution would bring, definitively, peace and prosperity in Europe. The societary assembly proposed to the French statesman to make a project. The result of this commitment, the so-called Memorandum Briand, set down and extended the Briandian intentions. One of the nations that immediately opposed the French proposal was the Italy of Mussolini. Duce believed that the establishment of a federal union would freeze the demands of the revisionist states by making France the hegemon power. For this he charged his Foreign Minister Dino Grandi with preparing a reply to the Memorandum. The Italian reply presented a counter-proposal of a European union. Was the Italian response merely an anti-French geopolitical maneuver or did Mussolini desire to impose a fascist link between the states of the continent hide behind it?