Dear Europeans,

After agreeing on the procedures for the meetings of the Convention, the Convention members have begun to focus on their political task: proposing far-reaching reforms for the future of Europe. The Presidium has therefore decided to establish up to nine Convention working groups.
After discussing the broad missions of Europe, the Convention will focus in their next meeting on the question of a future division of competences for the European Union. Several Convention members have already begun to propose solutions to this question. Nevertheless, many of these ideas are very vague. In this edition we take the opportunity to present some clearer ideas on the question of the competences.

We believe that these issues need to be discussed in more depth. We have established a discussion forum which, after a test-phase, will now be launched on Europe Day, 9 May, at www.constitutional-convention.net. There you can comment on articles of the Bulletin or on any questions linked to the work of the Convention. On 9 May there will be more details on this in a short special edition of the Convention Bulletin.

The youth organisations which together make up the Youth Contact Group have built on their earlier cooperation, and have agreed to develop concrete contributions to the Convention on the basis of the principles contained in the Youth Manifesto, which you will find included below. In this edition you will also find information on the proposed Youth Convention, and JEF’s position on the involvement of young people in the whole Convention process. The cooperation between European youth organisations has an important role to play in stimulating public debate and building support for a genuine democratic reform of the Union.

If you would like to contribute to the next edition of the Bulletin, send your contribution to convention@jef-europe.net (deadline for the 6th issue is 15 April). As usual, you can see all articles of this Bulletin in full length on the Youth Convention Homepage: www.constitional-convention.net.

Best European greetings,

Your Editors.