European referendum campaign newsletter 01/07
By Europe on Sunday, June 17 2007, 00:13 - Euractions - Permalink
Welcome to the first edition of the REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN NEWSLETTER 01/07.
Content: About the campaign, What's at stake at the European Summit?, Activities, Supporters update, How can you help the campaign?, Who is on the organisational team?
The first edition of the REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN NEWSLETTER 01/07.
CONTENT
I. About the campaign
Why do we need this campaign?
II. What's at stake at the European Summit?
1. Commit to a European constitution 2. Commit to a European referendum
III. Activities
23 March: Campaign kicks-off in Rome! 21 April: Munich launch and street action 16 June: JEF pan-European action day
IV. Supporters update
V. Practical updates
VI. How can you help the campaign?
1. Sign the petition yourself 2. Tell friends and family 3. Link to europeanreferendum.eu 4. Donate to the campaign 5. Join the campaign groups
VII. Who is on the organisational team?
VIII.How to contact us
I. ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN
On 21 April 2007 the campaign for an EU-wide consultative referendum on the European Constitution was officially launched by the Union of European Federalists (UEF) and the Young European Federalists (JEF). The goal of this campaign is to collect at least one million signatures in support of a European referendum to be held on the same day as the next European elections in 2009.
WHY DO WE NEED THIS CAMPAIGN?
An effective European Union must be democratic and founded on popular consent. Therefore any European Constitutional Treaty should be submitted to a consultative referendum of the citizens in all European states on the same day as the European elections in 2009, with a positive result if it is supported by a double majority of citizens and states of the Union.
To read more about the campaign visit the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section at our website www.europeanreferendum.eu .
II. WHAT'S AT STAKE AT THE EUROPEAN SUMMIT?
The heads of government of the 27 EU member states will meet in Brussels on 21/22 June. Their summit meeting will decide the way forward for the European constitutional treaty. This campaign has been launched with two key demands:
1.COMMIT TO A EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION
The European Council should keep to the idea of a European constitution and reject the minimalist alternative of a mini-Treaty. The previous constitutional treaty was ratified by 18 out of 27 of the member states and received 55 per cent of the votes cast by citizens in the four referendums that were held. This is a mandate for progress, not for retreat.
There will be negotiations between now and the end of December to agree a new text for the future of the European Union. In order to deal with the challenges that Europe faces, this text should be ambitious. It should be faithful to the constitutional treaty, and faithful to the idea of Europe.
Read the statement by Mercedes Bresso, president of the UEF here: http://www.federaleurope.org/index.php?id=3327
Read the statement by JEF-Europe here: http://www.jef.eu/index.php?id=1374
2.COMMIT TO A EUROPEAN REFERENDUM
The decision about the future of Europe is not just a matter for the heads of government alone. It should be a matter for all European citizens.
That is why the campaign also calls on the European Council to agree to submit the results of their negotiations to a consultative Europe-wide referendum, which should be held in every European country on the same day. Democratic aims can only be achieved by democratic means. That means a European referendum and not a European summit.
If you agree that Europe in the future should be united and not divided, and if you agree that European citizens should be entitled to take this decision, then you can add your support to the campaign.
Visit our campaign website at www.europeanreferendum.eu
And tell your friends!
III. ACTIVITIES
23 March: CAMPAIGN KICKS-OFF IN ROME!
On Friday, March 23rd, during the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Rome Treaties in Palazzo Madama (Italian Senate), the European Federalist Movement (MFE - UEF Italy) launched the Campaign for collecting a million signatures to demand a consultative referendum on the European Constitution. The event has shown the general support surrounding the proposal for a European referendum, which is increasing within the political forces. This proposal is quickly gathering more and more support among the citizens, who welcome favourably the perspective of involving the European people in the process that has to give Europe a Constitution, effectively summarised in the slogan of the Campaign: "Let the European people decide!".
Read more about it here: http://www.taurillon.org/Campaign-for-a-European-Referendum-kicks-off-in-Rome
21 April: MUNICH LAUNCH AND STREET ACTION
The European referendum campaign was officially launched in Munich during the Federal Committee meeting of UEF with discussion in the Bavarian parliament, featuring Mercedes Bresso, president of UEF, Claudia Roth, president of the German Greens and Paolo Ponzano, Director of the Task Force on the future of the Union and Institutional Matters.
In the city centre members of JEF-Germany organised a street action collecting signatures for the campaign. To read more about the action and see the photos go to http://www.jef.de/.
16 June: JEF PAN-EUROPEAN ACTION DAY
Whereas several of Europe's leaders are talking about burying the European constitution alive, JEF has got a solution: Let the European People decide! Together with UEF we are supporting the 1 million signatures in support of a pan-European consultative referendum on a (revised) European constitution - www.europeanreferendum.eu . . The action will take place Saturday 16 June - just one week before the Summit and a few days before Merkel concludes the German Presidency - i.e. straight in the spotlight!
We hope you will join in so that jointly we can send a strong message to the summit! Please contact asa.gunven@gmail.com to let her know that you are taking part in the action and to get further information and material.
And good luck!
IV. SUPPORTERS UPDATE
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, president of the European Convention, signs our petition during a street action in Rome, Italy marking the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaties.
Gérard Onesta, French MEP from the European Greens and Vice-President of the European Parliament officially supports the European referendum campaign and spreads the word about it in his newsletter.
Jürgen Habermas, the famous German philosopher in favour of a Euro-wide referendum; read the interview at http://europeanreferendum.blogspot.com
V. PRACTICAL UPDATES
THE COUNTER: on June 13 we have reached more than 7000 signatures!
LANGUAGE VERSIONS: the referendum website is now available in the following languages: English, French, German, and - new - in Italian and Finnish!
Czech, Esperanto and Slovenian will follow next week while many others are still in the pipe-line.
VI. HOW CAN YOU HELP THE CAMPAIGN?
1.Sign the petition yourself
The first thing is obviously to sign the petition on www.europeanreferendum.eu yourself.
2.Tell friends and family
There are many, many ways in which you can promote the campaign. The most basic thing is obviously to tell friends and family about the campaign. Don't get on their nerves - and don't force anyone to sign. But if you tell many people around you, you might be surprised by how many people are actually sympathetic to our campaign and our ideas.
3. Link to europeanreferendum.eu
If you are running your own website or even a blog you can make a very valuable contribution to the campaign: Publish a banner for the campaign. You can download two different banners on the campaign website. If you want you can even add the banner to your own E-mail signature - we know that this is something for the very committed.
4. Donate to the campaign
This is a self-financing campaign. Therefore we are highly depended on financial support by individuals. Your financial support will help the campaign to attract more publicity. You can donate to the campaign through PayPal: even a small donation of a few euros helps the campaign, but obviously large donations will help more. There is a button on the website from which you can directly reach our PayPal site: https://www.europeanreferendum.eu/en/how-can-i-help.html?no_cache=1
5. Join the campaign groups
Campaigning actions will be taking place in the following countries/cities on Saturday 16 June 2007:
Barcelona, Edinburgh, York, Athens, Lisbon, Vienna, Graz, Turin, Cagliari, Castelfranco, Verona, Padova, Prato, Bucharest, Berlin and many more.
Please contact your nearest JEF/UEF sections for more details.
Ongoing campaign groups: if you want to help out with translating the website into other European languages and/or help develop our communication feel free to contact us.
VII. THE ORGANISATIONAL TEAM
Campaign officer: Peter Matjasic
Campaign coordination: Hanneli Ebding, Francesco Ferrero, Richard Laming, Florian Rodeit and Peter Strempel
VIII. HOW TO CONTACT US
Referendum on Europe Campaign Secretariat Chaussée de Wavre 214d 1050 Brussels Belgium
Email: info@europeanreferendum.eu
Comments
Hi,
So, could you remind me why we need a federation? Are you that convinced governance by the European Commission and Parliament is better than the job done by national authorities?
Don't get me wrong, I think the European construction of the past 50 years has been a great success, but why are you advocating a strong European central government? To me these are the old views. Just look at what's happening in Spain, Belgium, UK: regional governments get more and more recognition. In fact, the world counts 27 new nations since 1990! Yep, Europe is leading that trend.
Instead of making people believe we have a major institutional crisis on our hands, wouldn't it be better to focus attention and resources on REAL issues like reforming education, innovation, including immigrants, genomics, preventing climate change, etc... ?
Tex
Dear Tex,
thank you for your comment.
The answer is very very simple to me.
We need a federation, or a European government as you prefer, because there are some problems that cannot be solved by national governments and are common to every citizens in Europe.
The problem than cannot be solved by national countries are the same you have mentioned in your comment:
preventing climate change and immigrants are clear issues that need a common effort by a true European government.
To prevent climate change we need common solution to reduce or change our lifes. It makes no sense to Germany alone, for example, to make a good policy respect to this issue if all other European countries take another decisions.
Immigration is another problem that cannot be solved by Spain or Italy or France or Greece. Think about the movement of million of people coming from under developing countries towards Europe and richest countries. Do you really think that France can adopt a policy that can stop this global movement ? I think that the only option is that immigration policy will become a European issue. A European government (with a budget) can make serious policy starting, for example, investments directly in developing countries in order to make them indipendent. A European government has the power to implement a Marshall plan for Africa or to drop the illegal deb that is already been paid by those countries.
If you want to do something you shoud have a federal government that can adopt common policy that should be followed by every European country.
Creating or advocating for a European federation doesn't mean that regional level will not work or exist. It's true the opposite. Federalism is best way to have different level of governments starting from local to global (through regional, national, regional and world level). National states often oppose regionalism because they see in it a shift in power. Instead regionalism grew up better inside the European integration process. We can say that national states are losing power in two directions because there are problems too little to be solved by them (that can be better managed by regional level) and other too big that are better faced by sovranational institutions.
The principle of subsidiarity (one of the main principle of federalism) says that each problem shoul be solved at the appropriate and lowest possible level.
So there are local problems that can be solved by municipality and global problems that also Europe is not able to solve. In these cases we need a world government.
So dear Tex if you want to be realistic and solve REAL issues you have to abandon the old national view and adopt a cosmopolitan vision of the world.
Dear Europe (by lack of a more personal name...),
Your simple answers provide startling insights in your motivations and goals. Let me be clear: I applaud your political involvement and intention to be part of the solution rahter than the problem, but in fact this is exactly what you will make us part of.
My bet is that you are very much in favor of EU symbols like the blue flag and Ode to Joy. To me, that is nationalism in a different jacket. Nation states are maybe not the best solution, but it surely is the less worse one.
Indeed, climate change cannot be solved by France alone, but neither can it be solved by 6% of the world population that lives one on top of the other on the tiny dot of the world surface we call EU!
If there is any global problem you want to address by founding a federalist state you should go for the big prize of a world government. And that's where you get me scared...
Instead of focussing on how we can best institutionalise our international cooperation, we should focus on the problems itself. Binding treaties, commitment to international coopeeration and stimulating innovation will do a much better job at making this world a better one.
Best,
Tex