FEDERALIST VOICE MEMORANDUM TO THE CONVENTION ON THE FUTURE OF EUROPE

FOR A EUROPEAN FEDERAL CONSTITUTION

Freedom, security, peace and welfare are under threat both in Europe and throughout the world. The international order built after the 2nd World War is unable to handle the challenges of the 21st century, such as managing globalisation, fighting international crime, ensuring sustainable development and social cohesion.

We cannot accept the decline to which our divisions condemn us. Europe must face up to its responsibilities and speak with one voice. After the single market and currency Europe needs a political Union. The European Union should be transformed into a genuine Federation of Citizens and States, progressively embracing all the peoples of Europe.

We, the Citizens of Europe, ask therefore the Convention on the Future of Europe to achieve the following priorities which can provide Europe with democratic foundations and the capacity to act efficiently :

1. to produce a single draft of a European Federal Constitution, which will incorporate the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union;

2. to submit all European legislation and budget to the co-decision of the European Parliament and the Council and to majority voting within the Council;

3. to transform the European Commission into a "Government of the Union" which will stand for the common interest, and which will be democratically legitimised by the election of its President by the newly elected European Parliament;

4. to extend the Community method and instruments to all policies which should be dealt with on the European level, including general economic policy, Common Foreign, Security and Defence Policy, and to endow the European Union with adequate own financial resources;

5. to exclude the right of veto in the Convention and over the procedures for the adoption and revision of the European Federal Constitution.

We invite all members of the Convention, the European Parliament and the European Commission, all members of parliaments and the governments in the European Union and candidate countries to support these demands.