APPEAL TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION, THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL OF HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL PARTIES (to be endorsed by citizens, local authorities, trade unions and civil society movements)
The project for a free and united Europe, which first began to circulate in 1941 when the Ventotene Manifesto was written, has still not reached its goal.
The citizens of Europe have their own Parliament, Court of Justice and currency, but they still do not have a federal state and a federal government, because the national governments are not willing to hand over, to Europe, their sovereignty in the fields of the economy and security.
The national governments are thus condemning the Europeans to political decline, social retrogression and loss of competitiveness; they are depriving the young generations of a future and fueling both the current crisis of democracy and the citizens’ lack of faith in the institutions.
We, the European people, consider Europe’s political union as the ultimate response to the political crisis of contemporary society.
We demand a European federation
– which will have A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT endowed with limited but real powers in the fields of the economy, public finance, and foreign and security policy, and accountable to a EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT that, alongside the CHAMBER OF STATES, exercises full legislative power,
– which will initially include those countries wanting greater unity – the Eurogroup – in particular those states that have, historically, been promoters of European unification – France, Germany and Italy –, because we want:
- to create a democratic government of the European economy and save the euro by rehabilitating public finances and stimulating growth;
- to implement an environmentally and socially sustainable European development plan, based on investments in infrastructures, environment-friendly transformation of the economic model, greater use of renewable energy sources, research and innovation, and provision of European public goods – a plan to be funded by significantly increasing the European budget through the issuing of Euro bonds and the introduction of European taxes (such as the one on CO2 emissions and the one on financial transactions), partially in place of national taxes, thereby creating a more balanced distribution of the tax burden between different levels of government (local, regional, national and European);
- to defend the European social model, protecting the weakest sections of society, establishing minimum social and labour standards in Europe, and guaranteeing all people the political, civil and social rights established by the “Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union”;
- to create a single foreign, security and defence policy so that Europe can speak with a single voice on the world stage, promoting peace, disarmament, international justice and human rights in the world, beginning with the Mediterranean, African and Middle Eastern regions.
We call for the convening of a constituent assembly-convention
– composed of representatives elected by the citizens both at national and at European level, as well as representatives of the governments and the European Commission, which will have a mandate to develop, overcoming national vetoes, a federal constitution, to be ratified subsequently through a referendum held in the countries that were involved in drawing up the Constitution, in such a way that the Europeans’ political unity is founded on the will of the people.
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