UEF80 | Groupe Europe: Officials And Citizens Too, No Bureaucrats
Come back to the Federalist Serie "80th Anniversary of the UEF - The online book"
History
The group[1] was founded on 12 April 1975 by the merger of the group European Communities, an autonomous section of the European Federalist Movement, located in Brussels, and the autonomous section European Communities, which was attached to the European Union of Federalists of Luxembourg. The Federal Committee of the UEF, previously consulted, had amended its rules of procedure of 1973 to accommodate as an autonomous basic organization, without territorial connection, the group European Communities (Article 3, 2nd paragraph and Article 6, 2nd paragraph). At an extraordinary Congress on 10 May 2000, the group decided to change its name to ‘UEF Groupe Europe’ or ‘UEF-EU group’. Its status as an ASBL has been registered in the Luxembourg register of companies and businesses.
A non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation, the Group is an autonomous section of the UEF, with no territorial affiliation. We are still waiting for a European association status, which has been under construction for decades.
The Group was chaired by Jacques Santer, now Honorary President with Alain Lamassoure and Richard Corbett. The secretaries-general were Mario Greco, Michel Soubies and Catherine Vieilledent, with Barbara Noel and Catherine Vieilledent as section secretaries for Brussels, and Lothar Jaschke, then Giovanni Rastrelli and Marie-Andrée Motch-Richard for Luxembourg (before the section was dissolved in 2013).
Mission
With around 100 members, the organisation contributes to the development of a European public space, in coordination with the work of the UEF and the other sections as well as its partner networks. The mission of the Europe Group is to bring together the politicians, officials and staff of the European institutions, in the broad sense, who wish to act for European integration, as it promises well-being, justice and cohesion.
The Europe Group intends to promote within and outside the European institutions the constitution of a federal Europe that makes its voice heard in the world to defend the values of peace, democracy, solidarity and justice and that implements integrated, coherent, transparent and citizen-friendly policies.
The Europe Group aims to stimulate and, if necessary, open the debate on the main topics of European and global current affairs and to call for the necessary progress in European integration. Its members aim to inform both staff of the European institutions and bodies of the Union and citizens about the issues at stake in European policies.
Activities
The Group is therefore a political (albeit non-partisan) organisation that acts through publications (Futuribles, Telos-eu, Graspe, Fédéchoses, The Federalist Debate …), reflections and public debates. At the end of the 1990s and in the 2000s, the Group supported the actions of the Permanent Civil Society Forum for Participatory Democracy and several citizens’ initiatives, including the one on water, for European education and for a New Deal for Europe (precursor of the NextGenEU European recovery plan). For 3 years (2018-2021), we facilitated the work of the European Citizens’ Platform https://european-citizen.eu/archives.html, to disseminate the challenges of the European budget (Elena Marrez), climate change (Pierre Larrouturou) and the Conference on the Future of Europe (Virgilio Dastoli).
We are active in campaigns for the European elections, calling on candidates, participating in congresses of European parties, following European televised debates, by our presence in Strasbourg at the inaugural in July 2024 and in Rome for the anniversary of the Treaty in March 2017, and by using any means to react, comment, criticise and applaud.
We are European citizens. This is why the Europe Group organised public debates on Youth Employment (in 2012 and 2014), on two-speed Europe, on the Future of the European External Action Service in 2008, on the European budget and on the EU's own resources, conditionality, on the rule of law, the media and the European public space to name but a few, with European personalities such as Alain Lamassoure (MEP), Viviane Reding (Vice-President of the Commission), Jacques Santer (former President of the Commission), Jean-Claude Piris (former Council jurisconsult), Henri Malosse (President of the Economic and Social Committee), Elmar Brok and Guy Verhofstadt, in 2023 with Geert Koopman (DGal budget) and Jean-Charles Leygues (ex-DG Regional Policy), Luis Romero Requena (ex-DGal of the Commission's Legal Service). More recently, we held public debates on enlargement, defence, competitiveness (with Markus Ferber, VP of the EBU, MEP), digital sovereignty (with D. Devesa, President of the EBU, the Head of AI at the Commission and C. Leclercq, founder of Euractiv and EuroMediaLab).
We also associate ourselves with the activities of other associations, valuing the expertise of our members and that of external specialists. We have disseminated/published positions on the European civil service, in cooperation with the Reflection Group on the Future of the European Public Service (GRASPE), competitiveness, participatory democracy, institutional reform, European digital sovereignty in the federalist press and various media. We publish reports of our public conferences and seminars, etc.
The federalism we support
Faced with the incredible succession of ever-deepening crises, the return of war to our borders, the disintegration of the transatlantic alliance, China’s aggressive trade policy, the acceleration of climate change, the destabilisation of the multilateral order and international trade, etc., the Member States are struggling to understand that they must share sovereignty in order to regain it. The European Union cannot escape the need for deep cooperation, or it will suffer the slow erasure mentioned by Mario Draghi.
For 70 years, Europeans have lived under the illusion of a peaceful and globalised world where choices are self-imposed. But history has made a big comeback: the fall of the Soviet Empire has bequeathed a Russia in search of destiny between Europe and Asia, the refocusing of the United States on the Pacific leaves us confronting the need to take our place in the world. In truth, the European Union is unprepared: the euro area suffers from poor governance due to the lack of a budget at scale, the lack of an effective decision-making system, the lack of a truly integrated internal market and the mobilisation of its industrial and financial capacity. Where broad and robust measures are needed, the EU acts only belatedly and timidly, as if it still believed in the self-correcting capacity of the markets.
The systemic unpreparedness of Europeans is no longer tenable. There is a huge gap between, on the one hand, the powerful demand of Europe in European public opinion (when it can be expressed), on the other hand, the reluctance of the decision makers and the rise of the extremist vote. Therefore, rather than the current race for fragmentation in which some governments are seeking their political survival, it is urgent for the Member States to agree on the common priorities, which are now well identified: common defence, Green Deal, decompartmentalising our market, increasing energy and transport interconnections…
Credible and effective solutions to build a sovereignty that is now under threat on all sides result only from assumed interdependence. The diagnosis is established, it is almost consensual but the obstacles to implementation resurface stubbornly. This is the great return of procrastination, which is sometimes harassing, while we weigh nothing when we are disunited. Positive forces for solidarity, coordination, more democratic and inclusive governance must prevail. Today, there is an urgent need to (re)construct in practice, not just in speeches.
The expectations of the Europe Group vis-à-vis the institutions and the Member States
Policymakers emerging from the 2024 elections have a responsibility to push common priority policies to advance political integration and restore trust. This is why the Federalists call, as a first step, for the further integration of the willing in order to jointly assume the security of the Union and, as a second step, for the convening of a Constitutional Convention largely involving national parliaments, civil society, the media and public opinion in order to reshape the Union. The federalism we support will have to be a form of Federation of Nation-States. The status quo has an exorbitant cost.
As staff of the institutions, we want the Commission to be more political, more cohesive and more visible, as opposed to the accusations of bureaucracy (often in bad faith). To strongly resist attempts to intimidate by groups under foreign influence who use the issue of freedom of expression to describe information about the EU as ‘propaganda’. The institution cannot ignore that integration (‘the creation of an ever closer union of the peoples of Europe’) is one of the commitments of the Member States in accordance with the Treaties and among the tasks defined by them for the institutions.
We believe it is essential that the European Union ceases to be perceived as an external constraint and that the much-needed banking, fiscal, economic and political union in Europe is swiftly completed. To do this, in the face of the sum of the reservations and oppositions of some Member States and other forces, the Commission must strive to engineer concrete solutions to people’s needs.
Priorities and projects for the year 2026 and beyond
The ambition is to contribute to the emergence of a European democratic area that will enable the 450 million Europeans to take ownership of Europe, a Europe that ‘includes and protects’. The fragmentation of public space is one of the major problems for Europe today, and this was very visible during the campaign preceding the 2005 referendums on the draft Constitutional Treaty,[2] but this remains the case in the campaigns for the European Parliament elections in particular. Yet there is a European public opinion; all it needs is relays. And an election campaign does not take place one year before the elections: it is preparing today and with the firm determination not to be terrorised. The worst of situations is “shameful Europe”.
Our red thread will be to launch a real debate on federalism and solidarity, at a time when our nation states are subject to complex internal tensions and a powerful rise of extremes. This means taking an interest in the frustrations and identity claims that are expressed. But we will not refrain from disseminating knowledge of our collective history, the analyses and solutions that we are developing in response to the major challenges facing the EU today (security, climate, digital sovereignty, energy, etc.) in the radical change of the geopolitical environment. Nor hesitate to push for a reform of EU decision-making mechanisms, including unanimity on foreign policy, security and taxation..
It is proposed to launch the idea of a "March for Europe" leading to the parliamentary elections of 2029, the founding moment of our European democracy. The first stage would be in September 2026, the anniversary of Churchill’s speech on the ‘United States of Europe’ and Hertenstein’s programme in Switzerland and, in December, the anniversary of the founding of the European Union of Federalists in Paris. The second stage would be in March 2027, the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome and then the 70th anniversary of the Commission in January 2028. The third stage would be May 2028, the anniversary of the Hague Congress, the founding moment of European federalism organised by associations, stemming in particular from resistance to Nazism. The fourth stage would be the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the election of the European Parliament in June 1979, of which Simone Veil was the first President.
This roadmap must be communicated to the presidencies of the three institutions.
We believe that the urgency is to listen to what is happening on the ground, providing a space for multilingual and intercultural dialogue. In order to do this, we want to bring back the testimonies that will be sources of inspiration, with the support of the UEF sections in particular. Our ambition is to continue to address the major issues that are emerging today (war and peace, decarbonisation, integration of the internal market, breaking with our dependencies in multiple areas), to put them in the public debate by inviting experts and personalities from the institutions and the Member States.
[1] Website: https://federalists.eu/groupe-europe/
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/UEF-Groupe-Europe-463139700456044/
[2] See the book consisting of historical and current documents ‘1946-2006, Sixty years on the left for the United States of Europe, From the ideal of resistance to a European Constitution’, co-authored by Gianni Copetti, Roger Vancampenhout and Catherine Vieilledent, preface by Jean Pierre Gouzy, Cahiers de l’éducation permanente, Editions Labor/PAC, Nivelles, 2007.