Coalition Treaty between Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals in Germany published

With the title "Dare to make more Progress - Alliance for freedom, justice and sustainability", the representatives of the Sozial Demokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN and Freien Demokraten (FDP) presented their Coalition Treaty on 24 November 2021, after around a month of negotiations. The 178-page Treaty is intended to form the basis for cooperation between the three parties, which want to build the federal government for the next four years.

The seventh of a total of 9 chapters deals with "Germany's responsibility for Europe and the world." As in view of inhabitants largest Member State, Germany should assume its special responsibility in a serving understanding for the EU as a whole. This means that German interests should be defined in the light of European interests, according to the three parties.

One of the most ambitious goals of the so-called "traffic light coalition" is the further development of the European Union in crucial areas: for example, the Conference on the Future of Europe should lead to a constitutional convention and to a further development into a European Federation, organized decentrally also according to the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and based on the Charter of Fundamental Rights. "The Union of European Federalists very much welcomes the clear commitment of the coalition partners to the creation of a European Federation. The call for the creation of a European Federation is our core petition that we, together with our Sections, have been calling for since our foundation 75 years ago," says Sandro GOZI, President of the UEF and MEP. "It seems that the coalition partners have read our position papers, as the coalition treaty contains further UEF positions, which one can find, summarized most recently in our Appeal 'Our federal Europe - sovereign and democratic.' This Appeal has already been supported and signed by more than 500 high-ranking politicians and personalities and is still open for signatures. I invite the representatives of the parties of the coalition treaty but also the representatives of the other pro-European parties in the German Bundestag to sign the Appeal."

Furthermore, the coalition partners intend to strengthen the role of the European Parliament, especially the right of legislative initiative. The right of legislative initiative has been requested by the UEF at the last Plenary of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE). The coalition treaty contains also the call of a European electoral law with strong Spitzenkandidaten and transnational lists. "A unified European electoral law with transnational lists will lead to the formation of real European parties" underlines Sandro GOZI. "The clear positioning in the coalition treaty is encouraging with regard to future negotiations in the Council. In the European Parliament, we are currently discussing the Report on the Electoral Law that UEF Vice-President and MEP Domènec RUIZ DEVESA has drafted as Rapporteur."

Moreover, there is a positive particular focus on democracy and the rule of law in the coalition treaty. The European Commission is called upon to use and enforce existing rule of law instruments more consistently and in a timely manner. Liberal democracies are to be empowered to better fend off disinformation, fake news, campaigns, propaganda from as well as manipulation from within and outside the country. Unanimity in the Council should to be replaced by majority decisions, at least in foreign and security policy and the European External Action Service should be reformed and strengthened; a true EU foreign minister should replace the High Representative. Priority should be given to the Community method, but where necessary, progress is to be made only with individual Member States.

The calls and commitments towards a strong European Union and to European sovereignty in the coalition treaty of the Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals coincide in many points with the positions of the UEF. The goals are ambitious and promising. Germany can thus bring new momentum and new impetus to the necessary further deepening of the European Union. The coalition treaty has thus also raised hopes and expectations. The task now is to turn words into deeds.

You can read the German version here.

As of 1 November, Greens/EFA MEP Daniel Freund will take over the presidency of the Spinelli Group from Social-Democrat (S&D) MEP Brando Benifei. The Spinelli Group is a network of 72 federalist-minded Members of the European Parliament aiming to reinvigorate the endeavor for strengthening and democratization of the European Union.

Daniel Freund, new President of the Spinelli Group, comments:

“I would like to thank Brando Benifei for his great work as the president, pushing for a more federal Europe. As Spinelli Group we want to use the Conference on the Future of Europe to inoculate our continental democracy with strong reforms against overstretching in next crises. We want strong reforms for truly European elections, EU investments in a digital and climate friendly future, a Europe that speaks with one voice in the world. We invite all to join our campaign to make Europe stronger by making it more democratic!

The EU is being held back by antiquated decision making processes. We need to get rid of unanimity in the EU Council and we have to push for own initiative rights for the European Parliament. With a European second vote for transnational lists we could make sure citizens have a stronger say which lead candidate is the next Commission president in 2024. We have to make clear that more democracy is the answer to the current crises rocking the European Union.“

Follow our group:
https://x.com/spinelligroup

Read our manifesto of 2018 here.

Read our manifesto for the Conference on the Future of Europe here.

• Strengthening democracy with a second vote in EU elections for transnational lists, a right of initiative for the EP
• Reforming the Economic and Monetary Union and investing in European common goods
• Protecting EU fundamental rights
• Increasing the European Union’s ability to act by ending national vetos
• Fostering European citizenship and a truly European public sphere
• Ensuring a proper follow-up to the Conference on the Future of Europe

Background: history of the Spinelli group

Named after Altiero Spinelli (1907–1986), founder of the Union of European Federalists (UEF) and a founding father of the European integration, the Spinelli Group was founded on 15 September 2010 in the European Parliament (EP) in Brussels by former Belgium prime minister and current MEP Guy VERHOFSTADT, former co-chair of the Greens–European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) Group in the European Parliament Daniel COHN-BENDIT, former MEP Sylvie GOULARD (ALDE) and former European Parliament Vice-President Isabelle DURANT (Greens/EFA).

The nEUres project, Nonviolent European Resistance, was born in October 2019 from the Nonviolent Movement in Italy. Its purpose was that of spreading information on the history of Nonviolent resistance to Nazi-fascim in Europe among young people as a starting point for reflection on Civil Society. Contrary to popular belief, Nonviolent resistance does not mean only pacifism, but also the ability to be proactive on a daily basis through refusal to obey certain laws or governmental demands, with the aim of influencing the legislation or government policy. Refusal and opposition are characterised by the use of non-violent techniques such as boycotts, picketing, non-payment of taxes, and failure or refusal to cooperate.

Passing through six countries, Italy, Austria, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania and Spain, it was possible to impart knowledge, and encourage a transnational discussion on the forms of organised and unorganized Nonviolent resistance to Nazi-fascism. The educators responsible for sharing this knowledge were trained during the first of the three planned modules, which, ideally, are expected to end with an international conference in Turin.

Despite the fact that the pandemic forced nEUres partners to resort to hybrid and/or remote ways of conducting both the workshops and the 72-hour training course, the partner organisations achieved the training objectives. The workshops dedicated to the younger generation focused on ways to reinforce Nonviolent resistance: to impart historical knowledge of cases of Nonviolent resistance in the 20th century; to enhance the capacity for critical reflection and reading of historical events from a Nonviolent perspective; to improve the analysis of conflicts, power dynamics and leadership in order to facilitate action on Nonviolent principles and techniques.

nEUres builds on Gandhi's teachings through his satyagraha (force of truth), distinguishing itself from the passive Nonviolence movements of those who prefer not to intervene and follows Martin Luther King Jr.'s six principles of Nonviolence. But nEUres and the values of freedom, peace, justice, democracy and coexistence are deeply European. We see these Values in the actions of the men and women who laid the foundations for contemporary Europe. The protagonists of this heritage would today have a European passport. Examples of these are: Jan Palach, a socialist student from Czechia who died by setting himself on fire in protest as a symbol of the anti-Soviet resistance of the Prague Spring in 1968; Hannah Arendt from Germany who, through writing, resisted and recounted Nazi persecution; Marek Edelman from Poland, an activist and politician who took part in the Warsaw ghetto uprising and later became a militant in Solidarnosc; Celeste Caeiro, a Portuguese worker, who distributed and inserted carnations into the barrels of the rifles during the 1974 revolution. These are just a few of the Founding Mothers and Fathers of the idea of Europe as a project of hope and peace.

What does it mean to be Nonviolent in Europe today?

Today, the Nonviolent struggle means defending life, dignity, and the rights of all human beings. The fight for peace is also the fight for a more sustainable and solidarity-based future, as well as the fight against climate change. The latter started with Alexander Langer, one of the first to take the issue of ecological transition to Europe. Today, Nonviolence means the strikes of young people on Fridays for Future, a global movement for climate and environmental justice driven by young Europeans. Greta Thunberg, sitting outside the Swedish parliament during school hours in her "School Strike for the Climate" was the first to set the example. Nonviolence today means opposing exploitation, as Irene reminds us in the Italian workshop "an example of Nonviolent resistance today are the worker- riders who struggle to obtain decent working conditions". Nonviolence today means opposing sovereignist and populist logics, for a Europe of solidarity and welcoming.
It is "the everyday struggle of migrants against xenophobia", says Muscas to his companions of the Hungarian workshop. Dignity and equality are the keywords.

Nonviolent resistance today is, therefore, also opposition to war and violence, racism and all forms of persecution, exploitation and oppression. It is fundamental to oppose weapons and armed organisations, and it is imperative to choose the path of truth to achieve peace. nEUres aims, through its activities, to keep alive the memory of the past in order to look with more clarity towards the future and to have the strength to act against violence in the present. The beliefs on which this project rests can be traced back to the words of Aldo Capitini, founder of the Nonviolent Movement, who stated in 1940 "to work for a liberal and social Europe, without conservatism and particularism […] for tomorrow (regardless of the outcome) the principle of a supranational economic and cultural community". In 1940 Europe was in the midst of a world war. It was unthinkable to talk about peace, and even less so a Union of States. Yet, from Ventotene to Brussels, Europe is humanity's
greatest peace project and boasts more than 70 years of peace in one of the most fragmented and quarrelsome continents.

Today, more than ever, the European Union must be democratic, federalist and a beacon for the green and digital transitions. The crises brought upon by the financial crash of 2008, the migration flows of 2015- 2016, the rise of national populism, the 2016 Brexit referendum, the Covid-19 pandemic or climate change require a paradigm shift for the survival of the Union from national selfishness to a revival of the project of Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi, that in a bitter-tasting spring like this one, wrote the Ventotene Manifesto. The manifesto was then spread across the continent thanks to the commitment of some colleagues, including Ursula Hirschmann and Ada Rossi. It is a forward-looking manifesto, which has remained relevant 81 years after its first edition and has the great merit of bringing together the ideas of three great philosophers, Kant, Robbins and Lord Lothian and of proposing new policies that have given birth to the European Federalist Movement.

A movement that was not born in the palaces of power, but within the walls of a cold house on a small island where dozens of opponents had been sent into exile by the fascist regime. A project born from a common conscience, from young people who dedicated their lives to build an idea that today lies in our hands and is our responsibility to defend: the idea of a Free and United Europe.

Written by Cecilia Comastri, UEF Project Assistant - July 2021

You can read the article in:

French

German

Hungarian

Italian

North Macedonian

Romanian

Spanish

In her State of the Union Speech, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, takes stock of the European policies of the past year and sets out the priorities for work in 2022.

In her State of the Union Speech, the President of the European Commission first referred to the most important developments and successes of the past year. These include, among others, the measures to overcome the health crisis. Despite considerable criticism at the beginning, 70 percent of the adult EU population have already been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by the end of August 2021. The European Commission has also procured enough COVID-19 vaccine doses to cover the entire EU population and other parts of the world.

She also referred to the European economic recovery plan, NextGenerationEU, which sets the framework for a greener, fairer and more digitalised post-crisis economy and which will reshape Europe for the next decades. The first European climate law will write into law the European Green Deal's goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050 and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030, making Europe's economy and society climate neutral by 2050.

After one of the toughest years in its history, Europe needs to look towards the future with renewed hope. In the coming months, the European Commission will therefore focus on the following priorities:

• Continuing the vaccination efforts in Europe and speeding up vaccination globally, as well as strengthening the pandemic preparedness.
• Working on closing the climate finance gap, together with our global partners.
• Leading the digital transformation that will create jobs and drive competitiveness, while ensuring technical excellence and security of supply.
• Ensuring fairer working conditions and better healthcare, and creating more opportunities for Europe’s youth to benefit from the European social market economy.
• Stepping up our cooperation on security and defence, and deepening EU’s partnership with closest allies.
• Defending European values and freedoms, and protecting the rule of law.

“The Union of European Federalists (UEF) welcomes the assessment made by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: the attention to young people, first of all, because the European project is primarily about securing their future; the attention to security, in all its aspects, social, health, geopolitical. Then, the reference to the greatest merit in the past year, which is undoubtedly in the area of combating the economic consequences of the pandemic with the multi-billion financial package, the recovery fund. And, as the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan shows, the proposal for the European Union to initiate the development of a true European Defence Union and to set up quickly an autonomous rapid reaction force. However, as European Federalists, we need also to stress the need of deepening European integration. The past year’s crisis made very visible the need for a more united Europe. Hence, we can’t miss the opportunity to make the Conference on the Future of Europe a true forum with citizens to work together to achieve a more sovereign and democratic Europe.” says UEF President and MEP Sandro Gozi.

"We urgently need a strong, legitimate, and properly financed political Union that can tackle the great transnational challenges of our time, acting decisively in a wide range of policy areas, from climate change, growing social inequalities, health and migration to foreign affairs and defense. That is why we must be ready to move forward by a majority, without letting ourselves be stopped by the states that want to paralyse the Union, from migration policy to the other dossiers that are essential if we are to regain control of our own destiny.“ the UEF President firmly underlines.

UEF with its member sections and over 30.000 members from all 27 EU member states is not alone with its positions. This spring, together with the Spinelli Group and the European Movement International, UEF published the Appeal „Our federal Europe - sovereign and democratic“ signed by more than 500 high-ranking personalities from all over Europe.