In the paper, some eminent experts of the Movimento Federalista Europeo (MFE), the Italian section of the Union of European Federalists, outline a series of reforms of the EU institutional architecture, which might streamline and democratise the functioning to the Union.

Sandro Gozi, European Parliament member and Union of European Federalists President, has sent to the Constitutional Affairs Committee (AFCO) and of the The Spinelli Group the last issue of the series Federalist papers “The European Union and the return of war. The Urgent need for a federal Europe, Sovereign and Democratic” with the introduction of Sandro Gozi itself.

Here the paper in PDF (English language)Download

In the paper, some eminent experts of the Movimento Federalista Europeo (MFE), the Italian section of the Union of European Federalists, outline a series of reforms of the EU institutional architecture, which might streamline and democratise the functioning to the Union.

For instance, it is proposed:

We public here the introduction written from Sandro Gozi

"European unity, as we have known it since 1951, was built on the ashes of the Second World War, the most devastating conflict in the history of humankind. Now, eighty years on, war has returned to our continent, and it is drawing increasingly and dangerously close to the borders of the European Union. However, Putin’s attempt to exploit the divisions between the twenty-seven member states has failed, and indeed only reinforced the sense of belonging and unity that had already emerged during the pandemic. While pro-European forces certainly cannot but draw satisfaction from the emergence of this new “geopolitical” Union, the unprecedented political cohesion we are witnessing today must not result in political immobility, or short-sighted acceptance of the way the Treaties, in their current form, are limiting the scope for affirmation of a truly transnational political system. Rather, the EU’s current capacity for action, limited by the competences attributed to it, as well as by the fact that unanimity is still required in numerous areas, should drive us to demand, more insistently than ever, a sovereign and democratic Europe. It is, above all, crucial to overcome the idea that the single twenty-seven nations have a monopoly on democracy, and that this can be exercised solely within their own borders.

The very survival of Europe’s nation-states, now incapable of guaranteeing their own vital interests in the face of a world made of “empires”, from Russia to China, hinges on the success of this transnational project. The main challenges faced by the world every day, such as climate change, the digital transition, and the safeguarding of multilateralism, are indeed transnational issues and, as such, cannot be addressed through unilateral actions by the single nation-states, whose influence has declined dramatically. At the same time, the attribution of new competences to the EU must necessarily be accompanied by the creation of a genuine European political space, to be achieved through the progressive affirmation of transnational political and civic subjects as the main protagonists of truly European elections and debate.

Today, the EU cannot yet call itself fully democratic, or a power, or less still sovereign. This was, in fact, one of the main conclusions of the Conference on the Future of Europe, which saw participating citizens calling upon European and national politics to make the EU more social, greener, and above all more democratic and attentive to the demands of its citizens. Such an appeal cannot and must not go unheeded. The European Parliament, abiding by its commitment, immediately approved the reform of electoral law that introduces transnational lists, and voted to trigger Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union, thereby initiating the procedure for amending the Treaties, asking the European Council to convene, at the earliest opportunity, a Convention for this purpose. I think the ideas and proposals set out in this “federalist paper” can contribute in a concrete and constructive way to the democratisation of the EU in the context of this imminent process of European reform.

Deeming it now indispensable, we want a federal, sovereign and democratic Europe, aimed at defending the values and principles of peace, multilateralism and cooperation between free and sovereign countries, as well as national and local values, interests and identities; and ready to act as a power on the global stage to more effectively manage the problems and challenges which the nation-states have lost the ability to control."

Pier Virgilio DASTOLI, President of the Italian Committee of the European Movement (CIME), writes:

“The Quirinal Treaty between Italy and France will be signed in Rome on 25 November by Emmanuel MACRON and Mario DRAGHI.

The negotiations, launched in early 2018 by the Gentiloni government at a meeting chaired by Italian Minister GOZI and French Minister LOISEAU, and the drafting of the project had been entrusted to a group of six "wise men" including Italians Franco BASSANINI, Marco PIANTINI and Paola SEVERINO.

Among the priority themes of the agreement, emphasis is placed on research, culture, industry and defence, stressing the need to implement means such as structured enhanced cooperation in the event that unanimous decisions impede joint progress. After the Italian elections in 2018 and the formation of the Conte I government with Lega and Movimento 5 Stelle, the negotiations had been frozen, they were not resumed by the Conte II government due to the pandemic, and they were only relaunched by the Draghi government. They will finally be concluded on 25 November.

Many things have happened in the meantime in Europe and between Italy and France, including the start of the Conference on the Future of Europe, with the French and Italian willingness to consider the possibility of going beyond the Lisbon Treaty signed 14 years ago, at a time when the conditions of the world and of Europe were radically different from those of today.

This raises the question of "what to do" if some governments are not willing to negotiate and accept a revision of the Lisbon Treaty, and therefore which project, method and timetable to consider in order to overcome the obstacle of the Convention on the basis of Article 48 of the TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), which requires the convening of a diplomatic conference, the unanimous agreement of the national governments and the unanimity of national rectifications.

Within the platform on the future of Europe set up in September 2019 at the CNEL (National Counsil for Economic and Labour) by the Italian European Movement, the issue of differentiated integration has been discussed several times, a subject on which the Institute of International Affairs is working within the framework of a European project, while the European Movement has urged the Spinelli Group of the European Parliament to revive the essentially constituent method that the European Parliament had adopted for the elaboration of its draft constitution of 14 February 1984.

These are questions that the Quirinal Treaty should not escape, also in view of the conclusions of the Conference on the Future of Europe that could take place in May 2022 after the French presidential elections on 10 and 24 April 2022.

It should be recalled that the idea of a Quirinal Treaty was launched under the inspiration of the Elysée Treaty signed in the past between France and Germany and that a proposal has recently been put forward for a Franco-Italian-German initiative that would bring together the priorities of the two treaties after the formation of the new German government and in view of the conclusions of the Conference on the Future of Europe and the reopening of work on the reform of the European Union."

Sandro GOZI, former Italian Secretary of State for European Affairs, now MEP (Renew Europe) and President of the Union of European Federalists (UEF) writes:

“We are on the eve of an important step that will give France and Italy a leading role in Europe and a new leading role in meeting global challenges. The signing of the Quirinal Treaty will ensure a solid and structured basis for making the relationship between our two countries work, creating a series of working groups and more fluid exchanges.

There is today a great political convergence between Rome and Paris on European and international priorities. In the context of such a favourable relationship as the one established between President DRAGHI and President Emmanuel MACRON, it is therefore important to seal this special relationship with a treaty whose signature will give more strength to Italy and France to engage in joint action at the European and global level. There may still be some differences of opinion or disputes, but we will now have a set of new diplomatic tools and political mechanisms to prevent and resolve them. If we European states compete with each other, we all lose. This is why it is essential that Italy and France work together, hand in hand, starting with the development of the Conference on the Future of Europe, which will have to be followed by important reforms of the European Union.”

These two statements, reproduced here with the consent of their authors, were originally written on 17 November 2021 for the members of the "Italian Platform for the Conference on the Future of Europe.

You can read the French version here.

You can read the Italian version here.

The size of the crisis triggered by the pandemic forces our country and Europe to rethink themselves in order to try to understand how to strengthen their political capacity so that it can be commensurate with the current challenge.

It will not only be the mourning, the many deaths and too much pain that will mark our public and private lives; nor will the problem be restricted to the economy, bent by exceptional circumstances, and to its social consequences. The very mentality of the Western world will have to change in order to confront the tragic aspect of history, which has once again become evident in all its harshness.

How the new Western vision of the future will be built is a game that will be played first and foremost in Europe. It is here that the start of a new, true supranational policy can be built, forging the alternative to the false answers offered by nationalism that would bring back the clock of history to the dynamics of totalitarianism in the 20th century. The political, social, cultural and moral values of our civilization are at stake.

Italy must face with this spirit and this sense of responsibility next European appointments and commitments, starting from the European Council of 23 April.

At the plenary session of the European Parliament on 16 April, President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, wanted to quote the Ventotene Manifesto to underline the exceptional nature of the moment and the ambition of the response that the European Union must be able to give. Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi are Italy's heritage, and that is also why it is up to Italy, if it so wishes, to indicate how to turn the words of the Manifesto into concrete actions.

The European Union in these weeks is discussing – and finding – immediate and exceptional responses to support the Member States facing the health, economic and social emergency. The European Council, on 23 April, will have to finalise the package of measures and instruments agreed by the Eurogroup for this purpose, and Italy must be aware that it has achieved a great victory, pushing the EU to change its mentality and approach, in particular with regard to the European Stability Mechanism.

Within this framework, the debate on the Recovery Fund, on which the European Council must agree to make it operational as early as the next few months, must distinguish between the need for its launch as an emergency instrument to provide immediate liquidity to States, and its development as the backbone of the European reconstruction strategy, which is intertwined with the launch of the European Green Deal.

Emergency can be tackled by simply making the best use of the possibilities offered by existing instruments. Reconstruction, conversely, requires the boldness of innovation.

A major European reconstruction plan that also responds to the need to affirm a revolutionary new economic model, strong in technologically advanced and ecologically innovative sectors, cannot be achieved with the instruments provided for today by the Treaties. It requires:

– a new capacity for European political action, no longer limited to the coordination of national policies, but based on the principle of subsidiarity, to be able to act directly at supranational level where political action needs this dimension;

– substantial resources and a new approach.

In this sense, while we welcome the proposals for a substantial increase in the ceiling and resources to be allocated to the new Multiannual Financial Framework, we cannot fail to note the limits of this approach, which ultimately leaves national budgets and parliaments, together with governments, responsible for collecting resources and implementing policies. Not only is the decision-making system cumbersome and bent on the need to always find a compromise between the different demands and visions of the Member States; not only is EU action itself severely limited; but above all, ambitions are diminished by this approach, starting from the inadequacy of the resources that (with such difficulty) can be allocated to the European budget, even if it will be doubled.

The need, in this new phase, to think as well about the creation of a common European debt clearly highlights the limits of the current system. We recall, among many on this point, the remarks by Lorenzo Bini Smaghi: "There are no European activities today nor European capacity to generate autonomous fiscal revenues that can be used to guarantee European public debt…. To issue Eurobonds, the EU must be able to generate new tax revenues… (i.e. have) a direct tax authority over the European economy and European citizens".

The Multiannual Financial Framework, with the current institutional limitations that determine its decision-making mechanisms, can never become an adequate European guarantee for a common debt; nor will it be able to give the European Parliament and the Commission the possibility to increase their revenues, indispensable in the face of the political ambitions that should be put in place. Nor will it ever be possible to go beyond the current governance model, which is based on the coordination of national policies and which does not provide for a European political level capable of acting autonomously and therefore effectively.

The size of the challenge we are facing today – if we really want to give an adequate common response, while at the same time creating the conditions to make Europe a leading player on the world stage in the coming decades – really forces us to return to the spirit of Ventotene evoked in Strasbourg by President von der Leyen, and “to think the unthinkable”, as French President Macron reminded us from the pages of the Financial Times: “Today is the moment of truth. We must decide whether the European Union is a political project or just a market”.

The real choice for Europe today, therefore, is whether to really become a community of destiny. It is a choice that involves the federal shift to a decisive point left unresolved for decades. Italy should propose that a targeted revision of the Treaties be immediately put in place in order to create fiscal competence at European level. Rally the other countries that share the ambition of a Europe capable of acting in the new world and seek the support of the Community institutions, starting from the European Parliament, which should feel called upon to take up the legacy of Altiero Spinelli.

If there were the political will, a few months would be enough to carry out the reform and get to the start of the new Financial Framework, having created the conditions for a federal budget line, fuelled by European taxes decided by the European Parliament instead of 27 divided Member States, which would represent the necessary basis for issuing debt with a federal guarantee. A revolution that would pave the way for a real constitutional transition, relaunching on a solid basis the process of confrontation on the future of Europe.

Italy has the interest and the vision to promote this change of pace. Only in this way can the sterile polemics be wiped out in one fell swoop and a new phase can be opened to give our country back the historical role it deserves.

Milan, 17th April 2020

Luisa Trumellini, National Secretary of MFE

Bruno Tabacci, Camera dei Deputati

Tommaso Nannicini, Senato della Repubblica

Download the Memorandum of Movimento Federalista Europeo (UEF section in Italy)

Read the original version in Italian.

"Further joint initiatives are essential, overcoming old schemes that way."

Sergio Mattarella

In the darkest hour the European Union should regain the spirit of the Founding Fathers.

The exceptional circumstances that Europe is going through require rapid, effective but also forward-looking responses proportionate to the dangers that threaten us: not only the pandemic, but also the return of nationalism. If we cannot defeat both these dangers, the European project will be lost.

Despite the efforts of the European Union institutions - which have put in place exceptional measures and substantial resources, and are preparing other important initiatives - the events of the past few days show that the European Union is still held in a weak position by the Member States, which keep the monopoly on political decisions in their hands. This is why the EU does not have the instruments to give a unified response in the health emergency and does not have the indispensable instruments of solidarity between citizens that characterise every real political community. This is how the virus of nationalism spreads.

This weakness can be lethal. It can only be overcome by putting the federal project back at the centre of the debate, recognising that Europe is a community of destiny. The solution is to overturn the relationship between the Member States and the Union, taking away from the former the monopoly on political action, first and foremost in the sphere of solidarity; and giving the European Union the task and instruments to act directly, including in this field.

Today, Europe needs to deploy all its resources to provide a common response to the crisis by launching a major European recovery plan. With this in mind, the question of launching common debt issuance (Eurobonds) as soon as possible becomes impossible to avoid. There is, however, no European institution capable of fully guaranteeing such issuance. Today, the common debt could only ultimately be guaranteed by national budgets. That is also why, within the Union, talking about European debt provokes conflicting reactions; that is why we cannot talk about solidarity between citizens, but only between states.

In order to create the solidarity between citizens that is needed to meet common challenges, it is then necessary to address the problem of a European federal fiscal power. That is to say, we need to create an autonomous EU fiscal capacity which can be enforced directly (without the mediation of the Member States) on the European economy and European citizens, to feed a federal budget and provide European public goods. Obviously, this implies raising the issue of a revision of the Treaties, as this would be a question of giving the European Union fiscal competence. The European Parliament, with the Commission, should be given the power to decide autonomously how to raise own resources and also to manage European debt issuance autonomously, offering a European guarantee to free themselves from national budgets.

Fiscal competence should also go hand in hand with the extension of competences and the allocation of new, exclusive or shared competences in areas and policies that require a European framework (respecting the correct application of the subsidiarity principle), such as certain aspects of health and welfare policies, or industrial policy, research and innovation, immigration and the environment, together with defence. In this way, the European Union would effectively become capable of putting in place a major recovery plan by reinforcing those policy areas that cannot be fully developed at national level alone and would thus provide concrete responses to citizens' needs and expectations.

Including in the current debate the relaunch of the European unification process, with a clear and concrete federalist proposal aimed at providing structural responses to the problem that seems most urgent at the moment, is also an indispensable contribution to support and guide the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework, in which we see too often the wall against wall of national governments because the proposals are weighed on the basis not of collective benefit, but of the cost to their own country. Instead, the negotiations must be relaunched with urgency and ambition, in order to increase their capacity even beyond the 1.3% requested by the European Parliament, exploiting all possible options under existing treaties.

In addition, open the process to create a first nucleus of federal political power, already while the emergency is being tackled, is also the only possibility to resume as soon as possible the path outlined by the Conference on the future of Europe, and to transform it into a real constituent process leading to a federal constitutional pact.

We therefore appeal to all democratic forces convinced that there is no future for any Member State outside the European Union; to the leaders of governments who are trying to find the best means of acting together as Europeans, at this dramatic time; to the European Parliament, as the only institution directly elected by the citizens of Europe, and to every MEP, to support this proposal, the only one that can give the European Union the basis for a stronger start after this crisis.

As the President of the Italian Republic Mattarella said, "Further joint initiatives are essential, overcoming old patterns that are now outside the reality of the dramatic conditions in which our continent finds itself". The future of the very idea of Europe is at stake. The next choices will irreversibly determine our destiny. Today, or never, is the time to resume the path indicated by the Founding Fathers to make all citizens feel that we are a community of destiny.

Statement by the National Board of the Movimento Federalista Europeo (UEF section in Italy): read the original version in Italian.

In the darkest hour the European Union can only save itself recovering the spirit of the Founding Fathers

The current crisis, generated by the most serious pandemic the world has seen since the beginning of the 20th century, puts the European Union to the test in an unexpected way. The whole world will be ravaged and every political community will have to show that it has the moral and material resources to start again. We know that the challenge will directly affect the heart of our democracies and the very idea of building a new global solidarity.

As in the aftermath of the Second World War, political responses must be proportional to the dangers that threaten our values, our model of a free, democratic, solidarity-based society, our very future. No state alone in Europe will be able to meet this challenge. Everyone will have to play their part, but only together we can save our civilisation.

The distance between the reality of the European Union today and the community of cohesive destiny that we sorely need is plain for all to see. National selfishness remains dominant; even if the crisis is hitting all the countries hard – and should therefore push towards the search for common answers – the old contrasts, particularly between the blocs of the countries of the North and the countries of the South, remain deep, because selfishness wins out.

Yesterday’s meeting of the European Council, which culminated – after eliciting a number of strong, even bothered reactions, such as that expressed by the Italian Prime Minister – with the "non-decision" (on the crucial issue of financial support to States) to ask the Eurogroup to draw up a proposal, provided yet another example of this situation.

In this occasion, too, many governments have not managed to break away from the short-sighted view of their own very short-term interests, despite the fact that the other European institutions have now understood the need for a common and cohesive reaction. The ECB, the European Commission and the European Parliament itself have made extraordinary interventions in the last two weeks, with the will to use all the room for action granted to them by the Treaties. The obvious crux of the malfunctioning of the EU therefore lies in the monopoly of decisions by the Member States, symbolized by the overwhelming power of the European Council and its inability to find agreements to make the European Union work.

In all this, on the one hand, it is difficult to see at this point what path the Union can take in order to deploy sufficient resources to really support the economies and social policies of the Member States. All assumptions made are either insufficient, or have contraindications for one or the other; but above all, it is difficult to understand how to get out of this dead end due to the fact that solidarity takes place exclusively between States, because the European Union does not have the fiscal competence that would allow a shift to solidarity between European citizens. On the other hand, one of the facts that must be strongly highlighted is that if Europeans urgently need to become a community of united and cohesive destiny, the solution will not be found in the clash between opposing types of national interests, but only by moving to the qualitatively different terrain of the common interest.

The letter of the nine Heads of State and Government sent on 25 March to the President of the European Council, Charles Michel (he too, it has to be said, committed to trying to make governments think more in terms of the common interest), contains, for example, many right points, including the question of "working on a common debt instrument issued by a European institution to raise funds on the market on the same basis and for the benefit of all Member States". This is certainly a necessary proposal, all the more so at this emergency stage. At the same time, under the current conditions, this European institution, which in the proposal of the nine governments should issue debt (and therefore guarantee it), will not avoid to rely on a fund fed by contributions from the States. In this way it is difficult to break out of the vicious circle.

A European debt, in order not to become a divisive issue, should not fall within the scope of simple solidarity between States (which makes the more solid countries feel authorized to speak of conditionality towards those whose debt is more exposed) but should be based on the European guarantee of a federal budget. This is why the strength of the proposal to work on a common debt instrument would be infinitely greater if it were accompanied by that of relaunching federal political union. In this way, it would shift the terrain of confrontation from the current clash of divergent interests to a vision of Europe’s future.

Many people believe that raising the issue of relaunching political union in this emergency phase is unrealistic; but if the deadly risk facing the European Union today is that it will drag itself through the crisis and finally find itself increasingly torn apart, thereby destroying the heritage of 70 years of integration, is it really unthinkable at this time to pose the problem of taking real steps in the federal direction? It is a fact that, in order to save the European Union, there is no alternative to reversing the prevailing logic that drives everyone to seek their own advantage at the expense of the common interest.

Seventy years ago, in this spirit, Jean Monnet conceived the birth of the European Coal and Steel Community. The parallelism with the situation today is very clear. Indeed, the experience of the ECSC teaches us that the solution to the acute crisis can only be found in a project with a strong political value that is capable of reversing the relationship between the Member States and the Union, making the latter autonomous and capable of acting within its sphere of competence.

Today, as shown by the impasse in the negotiations on the Union budget and the possibility of a common debt instrument, the problem that can no longer be postponed is that of giving the Union fiscal competence – even limited initially to a few resources – entrusting it to the political institutions of the Union. One hypothesis is to link resources to “European public goods”, such as the environment; they could therefore initially consist of taxes such as the border carbon tax, with a view to allocating new resources in the future. In any case, this step would create the basis for an autonomous power of government at European level, which would break the current political logic that concentrates power in the hands of the European Council, and could evolve further within the limits set by the democratic control to which the European Commission would be subject.

It is a solution that obviously cannot be based on the existing treaties, which do not confer fiscal capacity on the Union, and which would therefore involve amending the treaties. It is therefore pointless to hide the fact that this is a difficult step, not least because it implies a substantial attribution of sovereignty to the European level. But at this dramatic time, which forces previously unthinkable openings, the European Parliament and the States calling for a Europe that is more united and more capable of action would have every chance of taking up this battle and winning it. It would also be the only way to safeguard and relaunch the prospect of the Conference on the future of Europe, which remains an essential event and which would otherwise be overwhelmed by the crisis.

As Ursula von der Leyen reminded us yesterday in front of the European Parliament, challenging the European Council: We need to focus as soon as possible on “how can we use this storm to ensure that we can weather the next one better”. “History is watching us”, she concluded: “we do the right thing together: with one big heart, not 27 small hearts”.

Pavia, 27 March 2020

"Europe at the test of war against the coronavirus", Movimento Federalista Europeo, Italian section of UEF - Statement in PDF here (In English).

The original version of this statement was published in the official website of MEF (27/03/2020) - Check the original version here (In Italian).

Towards a Sovereign Europe - Rome-8
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