Operation Gladio - General Stay-behind Structure - European Parliament Resolution Concerning Gladio

European Parliament Resolution Concerning Gladio

On November 22, 1990, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Gladio, requesting full investigations – which have yet to be done – and total dismantlement of these paramilitary structures. In 2005, the first academic examination of Gladio was published by Swiss historian Daniele Ganser. Mr. Ganser, as of 2010, is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. His book, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, is a documented study of how Gladio operated.

British journalist Philip Willan, who, by 2010, was writing for the UK Guardian and Observer newspapers, described in the book, Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy, how the US intelligence services used their relationship with the P2 Masonic lodge to prop up Christian Democrat governments, undermining the growing political influence of the Italian Communist Party.

The 1990 European resolution condemned "the existence for 40 years of a clandestine parallel intelligence" as well as "armed operations organization in several Member States of the Community", which "escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO." Denouncing the "danger that such clandestine network may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of Member States or may still do so," especially before the fact that "in certain Member States military secret services (or uncontrolled branches thereof) were involved in serious cases of terrorism and crime," the Parliament demanded a "a full investigation into the nature, structure, aims and all other aspects of these clandestine organizations or any splinter groups, their use for illegal interference in the internal political affairs of the countries concerned, the problem of terrorism in Europe and the possible collusion of the secret services of Member States or third countries." Furthermore, the resolution protested "vigorously at the assumption by certain US military personnel at SHAPE and in NATO of the right to encourage the establishment in Europe of a clandestine intelligence and operation network," asking "the Member States to dismantle all clandestine military and paramilitary networks" and to "draw up a complete list of organizations active in this field, and at the same time to monitor their links with the respective state intelligence services and their links, if any, with terrorist action groups and/or other illegal practices." Finally, the Parliament called "on its competent committee to consider holding a hearing in order to clarify the role and impact of the 'Gladio' organization and any similar bodies," and instructed "its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the Secretary-General of NATO, the governments of the Member States and the United States Government."