09/07/2026
On 9 July 1980, at the invitation of Altiero Spinelli, a group of Members of the first directly elected European Parliament met in a private room of the Au Crocodile restaurant in Strasbourg, during the plenary session. From that meeting came the Crocodile Club: an intergroup committed to launching a constituent process within the European Parliament and giving Europe the democratic and institutional foundations it needed.
Just one year later, on 9 July 1981, a majority of the Parliament backed the Crocodile Club’s proposal. After two years of collective and transparent work, carried out in dialogue with civil society, the European Parliament adopted, on 14 February 1984, the Draft Treaty establishing the European Union: a landmark step in the history of European integration.
Decades later, that legacy lives on in the Spinelli Group, heir to the Crocodile Club. In November 2023, its members helped shape a new proposal for Treaty reform and called for the activation of Article 48. In the new legislative term, the Group has already renewed this call twice, urging institutional reforms to prepare the EU for enlargement and to deliver the economic reforms needed to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness.
Today, the Spinelli Group brings together 91 Members of the European Parliament and is chaired by Dutch Renew Europe MEP Raquel García Hermida-van der Walle, continuing Spinelli’s vision of a stronger, more democratic and more effective European Union.
