Category: INFO

Dear FC-Members, Dear Presidents and Secretary Generals of the Sections,  The return of the war in Europe, with Russia’s brutal aggression against Ukraine, forces us as Europeans to speed up the process of building a true European sovereignty and a strong and democratic European power, directly legitimised by the European citizens. This is necessary in order to build a true European defence, an energy union, a true foreign policy, a migration policy, etc…   As federalists, our best contribution at this stage could be to focus on the Conference on the Future of Europe, so that it includes in its conclusions the need to open a Convention to amend the Treaties, on the basis of the demands that have clearly emerged from the national and European citizens’ panels and from the digital platform. As you know, federalist indications (including our indications as federalist organisations) were predominant; all the more so in such a dramatic moment marked by the return of war, the Conference cannot ignore them.   This is why I propose you an exceptional effort over the next few weeks to collect signatures on this petition below. It is published on Change.org (LINK), and addressed to the Board of the CoFoE. Our goal must be to collect between 15.000 and 30.000 signatures by 20 April. They will be instrumental in putting pressure on the Council (where some governments are trying to block the results of the Conference) and in supporting the European Parliament, which, on the contrary, is trying to fight for the opening of a convention.      Change.org is a platform on which gathering support is very easy. We can upload several language versions, which remain linked, so the signatures add up; it encourages the circulation of the link to the petition, connects well to social networks, highlights partial results, important signatures, and it is really friendly.   I strongly invite you to sign and share the link of the petition. Below, in the communication from the Secretariat, you will find information on  how to use social networks as well to spread the link and the invitation to sign. Further info and meetings will follow, to coordinate our engagement on this common action. I would also like to kindly ask you to consider translating the text into your own languages, to further enhance its circulation.   The time to make a federal Europe, sovereign and democratic is now: let us all engage in this battle, trying to live up to our historical responsibilities.

With federalist regards, Sandro GOZI President

Information about the petition

WHO IS THE PETITION ADDRESSED TO?

Executive Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe

1. Guy Verhofstadt, Co-chair of the CoFoE, Member of the European Parliament
2. Dubravka Šuica, Co-chair of the CoFoE, Vice-President of the European Commission for Democracy and Demography
3. Clément Beaune, Co-chair of the CoFoE, State Secretary for European Affairs for the French Council Presidency

WHAT WE WANT

To respect the will of the citizens as expressed in the Conference on the Future of Europe, the various citizens’ panels and the future.europa.eu platform.

We ask to highlight in the conclusions of the Conference

1. the need for concrete institutional reforms to create a federal political union;
2. the call for a Convention to reform the Treaties.

FOR POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, CULTURAL AND ACADEMIC REPRESENTATIVES

Share the petition – (i) Webpage

You can find all of the content of this newsletter and more info about the campaign here: https://bit.ly/moreEUROPEnowENG You can use to disseminate the petition and the various instrument in an easy way.

Share the petition – (ii) Social hashtag

Show your support for the petition! 1. Download the hashtag (VERTICAL or HORIZONTAL) and print it out. 2. Take a selfie. 3. Upload it to your favourite social media and use the hashtag #moreEUROPEnow.

Share the petition – (iii) Message for Whatsapp

Copy and paste this message and send it to your contacts

#𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗘𝗨𝗥𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗻𝗼𝘄! – 𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗳𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲, 𝘀𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰 As war returns to Europe, the Conference on the Future of Europe becomes an opportunity to call for the treaty reforms needed to create a federal Union. 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 1)  Download the hashtag #moreEUROPEnowhttps://bit.ly/hashtagMOREEUROPENOWeng 2)  Take a selfie 3)  Upload it to the social network of your choice and ️ use the hashtag  #moreEUROPEnow 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼  Go to the link https://bit.ly/ moreEUROPEnowENG 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘀. 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗞 𝗬𝗢𝗨!

Share the petition – (iv) Multilingual versions

Thanks to Change.org we can add a translation of the petition at any time and an image adapted to that language. If you want to distribute the petition in a language other than those proposed, send to secretariat@federalists.eu  the translation of the petition and the Secretariat will upload it on Change.org.

Join the Appeal “Our federal Europe: sovereign and democratic”

Join the Appeal

At the start of CoFoE on 9 May 2021, UEF, together with the Spinelli Group and supported by the European Movement International, launched the Appeal “Our federal Europe: sovereign and democratic”, in which we summarised our ideas for the future of Europe. The appeal is still available on the UEF website. We invite you to circulate it also at local level (mayors, regional presidents, members of the regional and national parliaments) to further disseminate it. The initial signatories were: Sandro GOZI, Brando BENIFEI, Eva MAYDELL, Esteban GONZÁLEZ PONS, Domènec RUIZ DEVESA, Gabriele BISCHOFF, Pascal DURAND, Daniel FREUND, Damian BOESELAGER, Dimitrios PAPADIMOULIS, Fabio Massimo CASTALDO. By the time of the official launch of the CoFoE, more than 450 high-level personalities had joined the appeal. Among them we would like to mention Mario Vargas Llosa, Javier Cercas and Daniel Cohn-Bendit; four former presidents of the European Parliament as José María Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado (1997-1999), Enrique Barón Crespo (1989-1992), Martin Schulz (2012-2017) and Hans-Gert Pöttering (2007-2009). The long list also includes: the former European Commission President Romano Prodi, the first EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Javier Solana de Madariaga, the former Commissioners Joaquín Almunia Amann, Pedro Solbes Mira and Marcelino Oreja y Aguirre; as well as sixteen former prime ministers, including Spain’s Felipe González Màrquez and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero; Italy’s Mario Monti, Matteo Renzi, Enrico Letta and Giuseppe Conte; Greece’s Alexis Tsipras and Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt, co-chair of the CoFoE’s executive committee. An overview of the list is available here.

MAKE SURE FEDERALIST VOICES ARE HEARD BY 20 FEBRUARY!

Brussels, 8 February 2022

Dear federalist friends,

About to conclude, the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) enters its hot political phase. 

Three interim reports on the multilingual digital platform have been prepared so far, since the Platform kicked off in April 2021, and have fed into the work of the European and national Citizens’ Panels and the Conference Plenaries.

Only contributions made on the platform by  20 February  will be taken into account in the report which will be published  on 17 March.

We must make sure federalist voices are heard, and the time to act is now. We kindly ask you to boost our efforts to raise awareness about this positive momentum, with a view to engage citizens directly, and to gain wider support for our ideas, projects, and proposals.

We therefore, invite you to refer to our ideas published on the Conference platform, that you can support and disseminate:

• Our federal Europe: sovereign and democratic

• For a true European democracy: There can be no true European democracy without an autonomous EU fiscal power

• For a true European democracy: Abolish the right of veto and assign direct powers to the European Parliament in taxation and foreign policy

We must now take advantage of the Conference on the Future of Europe to move forward a more sovereign, democratic and stronger EU. As stated in the last line of the Ventotene Manifesto, the road won’t be easy, but we must strive to develop Spinelli’s ideas.

Find here a handbook on the CoFoE Multilingual Digital Platform. 

In addition to that, if you wish to upload – last minute – your own positions or events and if you need support, please let us know!

The contact person in the UEF Secretariat is Mariona Espín Onieva (mariona.espinonieva@federalists.eu).

Yours faithfully,

Anna ECHTERHOFF
UEF Secretary General

ISSUE 10/2021

“We should support those citizens who want to move forward and that are openly discussing in the CoFoE with no taboos. We should reform the treaties to ensure a new sovereign, democratic and federal Europe.” – MEP Brando Benifei, outgoing President of the Spinelli Group.

THE TIME IS NOW, UEF’s fortnightly newsletter on the Conference on the Future of Europe!
Issue 10/2021

Learn more about the Conference’s latest news and activities related to rebuilding the EU!

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1. CoFoE 2nd Plenary 

This past weekend, the Conference Plenary discussed reports from the European Citizens’ Panels, national panels and events, the EYE and the Platform.

This Conference Plenary meeting represented two major milestones in the context of the Conference. On the one hand, the 80 representatives of the European Citizens’ Panels that have been selected from the pool of 800 that convened in Strasbourg in September and October took their seats. On the other hand, for the first time, the Plenary discussed citizens’ contributions stemming from the different components of the Conference as they currently stand, while deliberations, events, and online debate continue.

The Plenary comprises representatives from the European Parliament (108), the Council (54, or two per member state) and the European Commission (3), as well as from all national Parliaments (108) on an equal footing, and citizens (108). As part of the citizens’ component, representatives from the European Citizens’ Panels (80), representatives of national events or national citizens’ panels (27, or one per member state) and the President of the European Youth Forum take part in the deliberations. In addition, representatives from the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee (18 from each), elected representatives from regional and local authorities (6 from each), and representatives of the social partners (12) and civil society (8) participate as members. For the first time, representatives from the Western Balkans participated as key partners.

On Friday, the Plenary working groups, composed of representatives from all components of the Conference Plenary (incl. MEPs, national parliamentarians, government representatives, the Commission, social partners, civil society, and citizens) met for a constitutive meeting. On Saturday, the Plenary meeting was opened by the Co-Chairs of the Conference’s Executive Board, Guy Verhofstadt (European Parliament), State Secretary Gašper Dovžan on behalf of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU and European Commission Vice-President Dubravka Šuica. The discussions revolved around:

• a presentation with first impressions from the European Citizens’ Panels by representatives from each Panel and by the Co-Chairs;
• a report by the representatives from national panels and events;
• a report from the European Youth Event; and
• a presentation by the Co-Chairs of the interim reports and state of play on the Multilingual Digital Platform.

The Co-Chairs of the Conference made the following statements from Strasbourg:

Guy Verhofstadt (European Parliament), said: “The enthusiasm in the Citizens’ Panels is great, expectations are high, the formula is working. Now the Plenary has to find answers to the issues raised, in the form of a shared vision of Europe’s future and concrete deliverables on how we reform the European Union. EU politics have to rise to the occasion.”

Gašper Dovžan (Presidency of the Council) commented that: “Tens of thousands of citizens continue to discuss the future of Europe in the European and national panels and events, as well as on the Platform. The Plenary will debate and bring forward their recommendations in the areas that matter most to them, without a predetermined outcome. This is the first Plenary under the Slovenian Presidency of the Council and we were very pleased to welcome representatives from our Western Balkans partners as key stakeholders with whom we share responsibility for the future of the EU.”

Dubravka Šuica (Vice-President of the European Commission) stated: “This is a historic moment where, for the first time, citizens deliberate on a par with their elected representatives at all levels. Bringing citizens to the core of European policymaking will reinforce our representative democracies, as we set sail towards our common future.”

A little less positive was the balance drawn by the citizens who participated in the plenary, who complained about the lack of concreteness of the working groups – with the exception of the one on health, chaired by European Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and judged very positive – and to have known only the previous day what the order of business would be.

The plenary itself was the subject of criticism, due to the shorter time allowed for speeches by citizens compared to those of politicians – many of whom, moreover, did not participate in the afternoon session – and the generic nature of many of the speeches heard in the classroom. The complaints were expressed directly in the hemicycle through the words of a Dutch delegate, who asked for more space to speak and received the applause of all present.

A position that Verhofstadt seems to have taken into account. In the press conference at the end of the assembly, the representative of the EU Parliament said that “the central role of citizens will become even more evident in the next plenaries, when they present their recommendations and proposals and others will be able to react on the proposals”. Verhofstadt added that “the most important novelty of the Conference is the active part of citizens in decision-making processes”, and that the mechanism used could “become permanent”, as a demonstration “of the fact that participatory and representative democracy can work together”.

2. UEF IN THE PLENARY 

UEF was represented in the Plenary of the CoFoE with our President and MEP Sandro GOZI, Vice-President and MEP Doménec RUIZ DEVESA and Secretary General Anna ECHTERHOFF.

“Citizens are asking for a more federal and social Europe. They are calling to remove the veto in the EU Council, to strengthen EP powers, a Pan-European constituency, etc. Let’s do not disappoint europeans.” said UEF Vice-President and MEP Doménec RUIZ DEVESA in the Plenary.

“We must strengthen European democracy by granting more powers to the EP. We need: a uniform electoral law, the creation of transnational lists leading to the formation of real European parties and legislative initiative for the EP.” highlighted UEF Secretary General Anna ECHTERHOFF

“We should support those citizens who want to move forward and that are openly discussing in the CoFoE with no taboos. We should reform the treaties to ensure a new sovereign, democratic and federal Europe.” added MEP Brando Benifei, outgoing President of the Spinelli Group.

“We all share responsibility for making the #CoFoE its Platform known. We need to develop a common consciousness to have the Conference awaken, focusing on a few concrete proposals to ensure greater effectiveness for Europe & its values.” said European Union Deutschland Secretary General Christian MOSS.
 

3. SPINELLI GROUP CAUCUS

The Spinelli Group (SG) caucus meeting took Place last Friday in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The caucus should serve to coordinate and defend the federalist and pan-European interests in a transversal way in all the WGs, and make them ambitious, with concrete proposals and conclusions. To this end, the SG distributed a Manifesto defending the main federalist ideas. As a cross-cutting group with different ideas, the SG will join forces to focus on the points in common and to ensure that the inclusiveness of the group is strengthened, without neglecting coordination between the political groups. This is the strength of the GS, the only cross-party, transnational and pan-European group. During the caucus meeting, the change of the Spinelli Group rotatory Presidency took place. We’re happy to announce that Daniel Freund will be the new President of the Spinelli Group on behalf of Greens/EFA. UEF thanks Brando Benifei for his amazing work this year as our first President for this mandate!

4. UEF LIVESTREAM INTERVIEW

Right after the 2nd CoFoE Plenary, a Live Stream analysis from a federalist perspective was scheduled with the President of UEF, MEP Sandro GOZI. The interview was conducted by Nana WALZER. The President shared his impression of the Plenary commented on the topics and working priorities the Federalists addressed in over the weekend session.

5. ANGELA MERKEL AND THE CoFoE

The Conference on the Future of Europe, which now-outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested could be the place to solve Poland’s rule of law issues, has been paid little attention. But that does not mean those attending have not been busy.

“The Conference on the Future of Europe is actually a good place to discuss,” said Merkel as she entered the European Council on Thursday (21 October).

She also suggested that the CoFoE is a good place to talk about “how the individual members envisage the European Union”. Despite this, even though the conference had its second plenary on 23 October, it failed to make many waves.

6. NEXT STEPS

The next two meetings of the Plenary will be held on 17-18 December and 21-22 January to discuss the recommendations of the four European citizens’ panels that will wrap up their work by then. Co-chair Verhofstadt underlined that these sessions will have a different setup, with more time for the representatives of the panels to present their conclusions and a debate with other Plenary members on the concrete topics.

In the meantime, citizens’ contributions to the Conference will continue to flow in:

• the European Citizens’ Panels will meet online in November, and the first two will finalise their recommendations and present them in Plenary in December;

• the Multilingual Digital Platform remains available for citizens’ ideas and events, which will become part of the third report due for December, and which will feed into the last sessions of European Citizens’ Panels and the upcoming meetings of the Conference Plenary;

*Feel free to contact UEF Secretariat if you may have any questions on the CoFoE or the Digital Platform: secretariat@federalists.eu