In the 1930s and 1940s, the island of Ventotene was used as a site of imprisonment for political dissidents under fascism.

In early 1940s, during a period of confinement on the island, three men - Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni - produced the so-called Ventotene Manifesto, one of the texts widely considered to be a founding document of the European Union.
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The report refers to the Ventotene seminar founded by Spinelli in 1982 as a key part of implementing European citizens' education. For the subsequent four decades, young people from across the globe, together with MEPs and politicians of various backgrounds, have gathered at the island each year to participate in lectures and discussions on European federalism.