Signed by:
JEF (Young European Federalists)
LYMEC (European Liberal Youth)
YEPP (Youth of the European People’s Party)
ECOSY (European Young Socialists)
AEGEE (Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de l’Europe)

Dear members of the Convention,

In the coming weeks, the Convention Presidium will present to you their draft articles on the Union’s institutions.

We call on you to take into account the results of the first European Youth Convention, held last July, and present to you again our common demands for the future institutional structure of the Union. We urge you to overcome the shortcomings of today’s Union. Millions of young people in our organisations believe that the time is long overdue to transform the Union of governments into a Union of citizens. We ask nothing less than for you to build a genuine European democracy.

This European democracy can only be built on an ambitious reform of the institutions and procedures of the Union. Only if the Convention results in a democratic and transparent decision-making system can the legitimacy of the Union in the eyes of the citizens be raised. The citizens of Europe, and especially young Europeans, must be able to understand how laws are made, implemented, and how decision-makers can be held accountable. We ask for a clear separation of powers in the Union.

As the body directly representing the citizens of the Union, we believe that the European Parliament should be at the heart of this European democracy, fully involved in all legislative and budgetary decisions. We believe that the Parliament should not only elect the President of the Commission – on the basis of candidates nominated by the European political parties before the European Parliament elections – but that the Parliament should also have the right to hold the entire Commission and individual Commissioners to account, including being able to ask them to resign. The support of young citizens for an enhanced role of the European Parliament is unequivocal. Democratic accountability in the Union is a basic and essential objective.

As the body representing the member states of the Union, we believe that the Council of the European Union should be transformed into a genuine second chamber, acting only as a legislature and in codecision with the European Parliament in all matters. All meetings must be public: there can no longer be any justification for decision-making in the Council to take place behind closed doors. The demands of democracy call for no less.

As the body representing the interests of the Union, the European Commission must become the European government and the only executive power of the Union. Its legitimacy must be enhanced through being fully accountable to the European Parliament, and its members should be selected according to competence rather than nationality. The Commission should have the sole right of initiative.

In contrast to the voices raised by some European governments, as representatives of young people we do not believe that our future Union needs more interference from the European Council. Its role should be limited to giving a political impetus to the framing of overall political guidelines and the five-year and annual plans. Any enhancement of the role of the European Council would represent a step away from a European democracy and a step back to inaction and ineffectiveness by veto.

We also share the view of the majority of Convention members that we need neither a superficial and irrelevant rebranding exercise nor a “Congress of the Peoples”. What the Union needs is a transparent and democratically accountable decision-making system, not a new institution, the introduction of which would not lead to more clarity in the institutional structures of the EU. Therefore we demand that article 19 on this Congress of the Peoples be dropped from the draft Constitution.

We ask you, as representatives of the citizens of Europe, not to put aside the demands of the young people of Europe. We ask you to fulfil the objective stated at Laeken – to bring the Union closer to its citizens, especially the young. Young people have made their views clear, at the first European Youth Convention, at Youth 2002 in Denmark, at numerous national Youth Conventions across the continent. All of these events have showed clearly that the young people of Europe are looking to you to be bold, to be visionary, and to establish a true European democracy.

We call on you to give our views serious consideration. We call on you to show when the voices of the young people of Europe are raised about our common European future, these voices are heard, not put aside.

Sincerely,

Alison Weston
President, JEF

Ellen Trane Nørby
President, LYMEC

Markus Pösentrup
First Vice President, YEPP

Ilias Antoniou
Secretary General, ECOSY

H.Emrah Kurt
Vice President/European institutions, AEGEE Europe

Contact:
Secreteriat JEF Europe
Chausee de Wavre 214d
1000 Brussels
info@jef-europe.net