ON A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION

Adopted by the UEF XXVII European Congress, Valencia, 4 July 2021

Having regard to the UEF Federal Committee Resolution or a Common European History Manual adopted on the 12 October 2008;
Having regard to the UEF Federal Committee resolution on establishing Spinelli Chairs adopted on the 27th March 2011;
Having regard to the UEF Federal Committee Resolution on European Cultural Identity adopted on the
28-29th March 2011;
Having regard to the UEF Federal Committee Resolution in support of the establishment of the Spinelli Chairs adopted on the 5th November 2016;
Having regard to the UEF Federal Committee Resolution in support of a network of Spinelli volunteers adopted on the 22nd October 2017
Having regard to the UEF Federal Committee Resolution on the European dimension of education and culture adopted on the 21 April, Berlin, 2018
Having regard to articles 165-167 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which provide a basis for EU action in the field of education and culture, including of legislative nature;
Having regard to the European Parliament Resolution on Learning EU at School, of 12 April 2016, which “emphasises that an EU dimension in education is crucial to help citizens better understand and reconnect them with the EU”;
Having regard to the Council Recommendation on promoting common values, inclusive education, and the European dimension of teaching, of 22 May 2018;
Noting that European education programmes exist since 1953 in European Schools (Schola Europaea).
Originally created for children of the Community institutions they offer since 1959 the European
Baccalaureate and an educational experience of different nationalities and mother tongue teaching. In addition ‘recognized European Schools’ offer a European education that meets the pedagogical requirements set by the European Schools.
Noting that successful EU programs such as Erasmus Plus, the European Solidarity Corps, and Creative Europe, foster a sense of belonging to the European Union and allow for the development of support measures and materials on European citizenship education;
Regretting that these initiatives and actions are often disconnected, of small scale, and not available to the majority of Europeans;
Noting that the lack of a European dimension of Education is greatly contributing to the citizen's “knowledge deficit” on the EU’s origins, history, institutions, policies and citizenship rights, thereby fostering misperceptions, misunderstandings, and ultimately Euroscepticism, Europhobia and nationalisms;

Noting that the European dimension of education remains underdeveloped, while some Member States have increased the promotion of nationalistic biases in school curricula; deploring that the Polish education minister has expressed his will to modify the curricula to characterise the European Union as an ‘unlawful entity’;

Stressing that the European construction requires the active involvement of citizens; considering that factual knowledge about the Union is a precondition for their informed and active participation;

Stressing that the educational dimension of the European construction is of strategic importance for the European project;

Noting that education and culture have great potential for the developing of a post-national open European sense of federal citizenship and identity, with an overall cosmopolitan outlook, which is particularly needed in an increasingly diverse, inclusive, multilingual, female-friendly, and intercultural European society;

Noting that European Parliament Resolution on Learning EU at School, of 12 April 2016, calls “the Commission to provide a common framework, and to prepare guidelines with concrete examples, for learning about the EU”;

Noting that the Council Recommendation on promoting common values, inclusive education, and the European dimension of teaching of 22 May 2018 recommends fostering “understanding of the European context and common heritage and values and an awareness of the unity and diversity, social, cultural and historical, of the Union and the Member States of the Union”;

Noting that the 2017 Eurobarometer survey shows that 89 % of young Europeans agree that national governments should strengthen school education about their rights and responsibilities as citizens of the Union.

Noting that the citizen´s involvement on the future of Europe will test active citizens’ participation without prior basic training on EU affairs;

Calls for:

The urgent undertaking of a Special Eurobarometer Survey on citizens´ knowledge of the EU;
The full use of the TFEU, in particular articles 165-167, for the promotion of a European dimension of education, by inter alia resorting to Commission proposing legislative acts in this field, as allowed by the TFEU;
The develop a comprehensive European strategy on European civic and citizenship education, as well as supporting platforms to promote its implementation, focusing notably on shared EU democratic values and principles; with the aim to enhance citizens’ understanding of the EU decision-making process and of EU policies and should raise awareness of the benefits, rights and obligations of EU citizenship;
The establishment of a European Agency for European Citizenship education in charge of improving accessto and the quality of citizenship education in all EU member states and support the development of a European dimension of citizenship education, for all age groups, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds; considers that said Agency should be in charge of evaluating the impact of citizenship education actions financed by the Union, in view of upscaling those most successful and allowing the Commission to identify tested initiatives in order to propose legislative acts in this field; considers that such initiatives should be developed as a specific subprogramme in the Citizens, Equality, Rights & Values" or ERASMUS + programmes according to their scope, recipients and objectives;
The elaboration by the Commission of a recommendation containing an indicative primary and secondary school curricula on EU and global civic education for its voluntary adoption by Members States, based on the existing experience of the curriculum of the European Schools, in full respect of Treaty provisions;
The increase synergies across EU programmes, by inter alia, introducing and providing a compulsory module on the EU citizenship in all training courses financed by the EU through structural funds and mobility programmes, such as ERASMUS + and the European Solidarity Corps;
The full implementation of the inclusion objectives in the new ERASMUS + 2021-2027, in order not to leave any young European behind, irrespectively of their socio-economic situation; making full use of its strengthened budget in the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework to this end; stresses the need to further develop the programme to reach its full potential in terms of the number of opportunities offered to allow all young Europeans, at all levels of education, and educational professionals to learn across and about the EU and foster a feeling of belonging; remarks that the next Multiannual Financial Framework should provide the necessary budget increase to fulfil these goals;
The EU and national governments to increase their investment in formal, non-formal and informal active citizenship and democratic competences, as well as in training and capacitybuilding programmes for educators on the EU;
the Conference on the Future of Europe to fully take the opportunity to review the competences of the European Union in education and culture; calls for a revision of the European Union treaties in order to grant greater competences in these areas;
The strengthening of the educational dimension of our federalist movement´s policies, proposals and actions;

Calls on its Executive Bureau and national sections to forward this resolution to the European Commission, the European Parliament and national Education and Culture ministers, and to undertake specific advocacy actions vis-à-vis the said institutions