REINFORCING UEF - WFM COOPERATION  

DRAFT POLITICAL DECLARATION 

Approved by UEF Congress in Brussels, 26 November 2023.

In December 2022, in an event hosted by the European Parliament in Brussels, the UEF and WFM celebrated together the 75th anniversary of the Montreux Declaration. They reaffirmed their political will to strengthen their cooperation and promote a peaceful, democratic and global governance. This event was theoutcome of multiple endeavours since the UEF Vienna Congress in November 2018, and it started a new era of closer cooperation between the two federalist organizations.   

Recalling that in 1947 in Montreux, the federalists seized the historical momentum of the Second World War, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the risk of a new global catastrophe and confirmed their will to work towards the creation of a global federal government. They reaffirmed their commitment to promote peace, cooperation and universally agreed common rules and justice.  

The beginning of the twenty-first century saw the return of power politics and the proliferation of wars, putting an end to this previous era of optimism.  The world is sadly entering a new brutal era of conflicts. Across the globe, groups are arming up and choosing to resolve conflicts through violence and force rather than dialogue. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 and the new war in Gaza in October 2023 mark a significant shift towards worldwide insecurity, threats, economic instability as well as the excessive use of weapons to resolve international conflicts. Indeed, instead of using financial resources towards environmental restauration and social justice projects, States have now multiplied their military budgets and investments in their defence and security sectors.  

In this unstable global environment, a strong partnership between the World Federalist Movement and the Union of European Federalists should strive to promote a ruled based federal global system, reinforcing democratic governance and the peaceful resolution of the main challenges faced by humanity.  

For the next two years, the World Federalist Movement and the Union of European Federalists should develop initiatives focused on:   

1. peace and conflict prevention. Given the current situation in Europe, the Middle East as well as inAfrica and South America, the promotion of a framework for dialogue, de-escalation and conflict mediation/resolution is a strand of work the UEF and WFM/IGP should get particularly involved in. We must act to create better channels of communication, creating incentives to resolve disagreements peacefully and in accordance with international law while avoidingarmed conflict. Such campaign would benefit from being discussed more globally. The work on peace and conflict prevention and resolution can take multiple forms in which civil society and federalist organizations have a true role to play. The mobilization against cluster munitions and anti-personal landmines can lead to significant changes, prohibiting the use of these weapons in conflict areas. Regional and global campaigns to promote a more conflict-preventive foreign policy would be an area where closer cooperation between the UEF and the WFM could have real value-added benefits.   
2. the development of regional exchange between federalists. Given that we are aligned movements, we have much to learn from one another. It would be a mistake to fail touse the shared experience and advice of other like-minded groups. We, in UEF, have a movement rooted in a long history of social and political activism, spanning various regions and countries across Europe and spreading across various political families. Our experience in building consensus, reaching out to various stakeholders and mobilizing various parts of civil society fora democratic, equal and federal Europe is something that can and should be shared. On the other hand, we would benefit from an influx of new ideas from movements around the world. This might allow us to view our methods or the way we present some of our key positions from a different perspective. In practical terms, training activities, educational projects and informal discussions in these areas would be a good way to organize such cooperation. Online events, even if sometimes impersonal, allow much wider participation.  
3. international justice and accountability. This encompasses themes such as the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. These should be the key issues that drive all of our work strands. We have seen recently a worrying trend towards the questioning or weakening of these norms. This highlights the growing importance of fundamental rights, international justice and accountability in key policy areas such as corruption, severe transnational crimes and war crimes. These aren’t only temporary necessities, and we can’tsimply ignore them. We should, as federalists, lead the way by strengthening existing norms for facing new emerging challenges orsetting new ones where necessary. 
4. global environmental (including biodiversity) actions and proposals. Both organizations can coordinate initiatives, build synergies, and enhance cooperation across sectors, improve knowledge, education and develop concrete initiatives. In 2023, common events have already been organized for a Global Green Deal.  Two webinars took place in June and October which focused on financial and supranational monetary governance and ecological agriculture (including presentation of the European Restauration law). New initiatives can be scheduled for the next period on key issues such as water scarcity (promoting inter alia access to drinking water for all and ways to facilitate alternative dispute resolution related to water resources), health and environment -access to basic services of global economic interest, transformation of urban environment -socioeconomic dimension, the law of the Sea, environmental rule of law -fighting  biodiversity harms.