14/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - Activities of the Spinelli Group. Pier Virgilio Dastoli, the former parliamentary assistant to Altiero Spinelli and a former director of the European Commission Representation in Italy, has become a political adviser to the Spinelli Group, which was recently set up in Strasbourg at the initiative of Guy Verhofstadt, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and other supporters (EUROPE 10116). It is not being ruled out that over the next few days the European Parliament Federalist Inter-Group (which has existed since 1986) will merge with the Spinelli Group. The group's future activities include a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday 15 March with Ulrich Beck and Amin Malouf and, above all, a shadow European Council on 22 March on European governance, on the eve of the European summit, which is due to take a number of decisions in this field. The position of the Spinelli Group on economic governance was included in a text published on 2 March by the Financial Times and co-signed by Verhofstadt, Jacques Delors and Romano Prodi. On 8 May, the Spinelli Group will organise a colloquy focusing on relations between Europe and Africa, as part of the Europe Festival. In Italy, Supporters of the Spinelli Group have already been mobilising and met up in Geneva with Sergio Cofferati (S&D), co-president of the MEPs network, which supports the Spinelli Group. (Gp/transl.fl)