We European citizens are fed up with national politicians. They only care about their next local or national election. They ask for European solutions to European problems but then they act to render those solutions impossible or ineffective. They disregard sensible Commission proposals or not implement already taken decisions, including when agreed by all. They claim, one day, for Europe to do something and protest, the following day, for Europe’s action. We ask national politicians and the media to stop depicting integration as a zero-sum game, thus putting nations against one another. In an interdependent world no nation can satisfy all of its citizens’ basic needs and appeals for social justice. In this context, integration and supranational government is a positive-sum game. Our European social model based on liberal democracy and a social market economy can only survive in a multi-level framework of government, on the basis of the subsidiarity principle.
We European citizens are aware that globalization is transforming the world. We need a European government to foster our common values and contribute to the solution of the global problems threatening humanity. The world needs an outward-looking cosmopolitan Europe to help build a more effective and democratic global governance to cope with climate change, peace, global poverty, and the transition to an environmentally and socially sustainable economy.
We European citizens recognise the EU as an incomplete Res Publica. It has a ridiculous budget (0,9% of GDP) and no financial autonomy from Member states, while its current competences are out of date for what is necessary to successfully answer the challenges of the current crises. It has a federal like legislative, judiciary and central bank. But democracy is the possibility for citizens to choose the government and make it accountable. For the Union to work and be democratic its decisions, including budget, foreign and defence policy, and the reform of the Treaties, should primarily be taken by a qualified majority representing the majority will of European citizens and states. The Commission should evolve into a fully-fledged government, setting and promoting a political agenda legitimated through the elections. European parties should present their candidates to the Presidency at the European election. The alternative is a directly elected President of the EU merging the Presidencies of the Commission and the European Council.
On 14 February 1984 the European Parliament adopted the Draft Treaty establishing the European Union, the so-called Spinelli Project, pointing towards a political union, which Member states disregarded. On 14 February 2017 we call upon the European Parliament, the only directly elected body of the EU, to take a new initiative to kick-start the EU on strengthened democratic basis. Talking about banking, fiscal, economic, energy, security, defence and political unions makes sense only within a genuine democratic European Union, with all those policies under a European government.
On 25 March 2017 the Heads of state and government will celebrate the Treaties of Rome establishing the European Economic Community and Euratom in 1957. We call upon them to match the vision of the Founders. They should open the way to the re-foundation of the EU on the basis of the European Parliament proposal, and immediately exploit all the Lisbon Treaties instruments to strengthen the EU institutions and policies, especially on foreign and security, economic and social policies. We call upon the European youth, civil society, workers, entrepreneurs, academia, local governments and European citizens to participate to the European rally in Rome on March 25. Together we shall give the political leaders the strength and courage to push forward the EU to a new beginning. European unity is key to solve our common problems, safeguard our values and ensure our welfare, security and democracy.
The Appeal EU Refoundation is available in many languages and can be signed at this link.
MAIN SIGNATURES
The first signatures are Giuliano Amato, Yves Bertoncini, Stefan Collignon, Anthony Giddens, Roberto Castaldi, Ulrike Guerot, Miguel Maduro Enrique Barón Crespo, Anna Diamantopoulou, Edmond Alphandery, Loukas Tsoukalis, Nadia Urbinati, Pietro Rossi, Gianfranco Pasquino, Michael Keating, Antonio Padoa Schioppa, Massimo Cacciari, Jean-Victor Louis, Biagio de Giovanni, Massimiliano Guderzo, Lucasz Zamecki, Andrea Manzella, Cesare Pinelli, Riccardo Perissich, Paul Jaeger, Alberto Alemanno, Alessandro Cavalli, Diane Fromage, Vladimiro Zagrebelsky, Fabio Masini, Carlos Closa, Ivan Ingravallo, Marco Balboni, Susanna Cafaro, Francisco Pereira Coutinho, Mario di Ciommo, Marita Rampazi, Guido Montani, Giuseppe Martinico, Jeronimo Maillo, Paloma García Picazo, Francesco Martucci, Anna Gerbrandy, Urszula Jaremba, Massimo Pendenza, Matej Avbelj, Fabio Masini, Tommaso Visone.