On March 25th 1957, in Rome at the Campidoglio, two treaties are solemnly signed: these treaties will create and discipline the European Economic Community (ECC) and the European Community for the Atomic Energy (EURATOM). The treaties were signed by the representatives of the following countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany. They also represented the economic base for the upcoming European Union by offering the guidelines for a common politics regarding the agriculture, transportations and commerce. The choice of hosting such a solemn event in Rome meant the acknowledgement of the Italian contribution to the political and cultural debate regarding these matters. In the spring of 1941 some of the intellectuals exiled by Mussolini and his regime had already elaborated a “Manifesto for a Free and United Europe”, also known as the “Manifesto di Ventotene”, which was a concrete political project that pictured a federal and democratic Europe in a time of a world conflict; the authors of such Manifesto were intellectuals from the left parties such as Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi as well as catholic exponents such as father Ernesto Gilardi. During the after war period, other characters from various political origins followed the same line of thought. Among them, Carlo Sforza, a republican and the liberal Luigi Einaudi. The Christian democrat Alcide De Gasperi, prime minister through July 1953, had been very involved up until his death in finding an agreement between the Italians who had a European ambition and the forces that were trying to move this direction throughout the continent.