RESOLUTION | A reminder: the “Declaration of European resistance movements” 1944
The historical significance of the 1944 “Declaration of European Resistance Movements,” is built upon the principles of the 1941 Ventotene Manifesto.
The Declaration outlined the vision of a European Federal Union founded on democratic values, minority rights, and the surrender of state sovereignty in areas like defense and foreign relations. The UEF resolved to honor its 80th anniversary, widely disseminate its contents, and reaffirm its enduring relevance in promoting peace and unity in Europe.
The UEF Federal Committee, meeting in Budapest on 16 November 2024
Provided
- that representatives of European movements of resistance to fascism and Nazism from many European countries having met in Geneva, agreed on 7 July 1944 on the final draft of the “Declaration of European resistance movements”, subsequently approved by those respective movements’ instances, before being disseminated,
- that that Declaration amplifies and contextualises the “Ventotene Manifesto” of June 1941, aka “For a free and united Europe. Draft manifesto”, by the following statement at its core, verbatim:
It is not possible at present to determine the geographical frontiers of a Federal Union which would guarantee peace in Europe. We must, however, state that from the outset such a Union must be strong enough to avoid the risk of either being used as a mere sphere of influence by a foreign State or of becoming the instrument of the political ambitions of one of its member States.
Furthermore, it must from the beginning be open to all countries which entirely or partly belong to Europe, and which wish to join it and are qualified to do so.
The Federal Union must be based upon a declaration of civil, political, and economic rights which would guarantee democratic institutions and the free development of the human personality, and upon a declaration of the rights of minorities to have as much autonomy as is compatible with the integrity of the national States to which they belong.
The Federal Union must not interfere with the right of each of its member States to solve its special problems in conformity with its ethnical and cultural pattern.
But in view of the failure of the League of Nations, the States must irrevocably surrender to the Federation their sovereign rights in the sphere of defence, relations with powers outside the Union, international exchange, and communications.
The Federal Union must possess the following essential features:
(1) A government responsible not to the governments of the various member States but to the peoples, who must be under its direct jurisdiction in the spheres to which its powers extend.
(2) An army at the disposal of this government, no national armies being permitted.
(3) A Supreme Court acting as authority in interpreting the federal Constitution, deciding cases of conflict between the member States or between the member States and the Union.
The Federal Committee of the Union of European Federalists, statutorily meeting in Budapest on 16 November 2024,
decides
- to recall and emphasise the value of that declaration,
- to widely disseminate its contents
- and to solemnly celebrate its eightieth anniversary.