The Netherlands does not understand. Angela Merkel should read De Gasperi again. Urgent measures for €1500 billion are needed, “European Recovery Bonds” included. Without an agreement, a group of member states could go forward anyhow.

“The definitive agreement will come if Heads of State and Government will find it. In the meantime, making progress in the Eurogroup is essential”. On the phone from Paris, MEP Sandro Gozi condemns those national governments opposed to an agreement. For weeks Gozi has been stressing the urgency to adopt so-called European Recovery Bonds, and with determination he was also able to bring together his liberal democrat group Renew Europe on this line “We need to find an agreement in three months, rather than three years - he said -, guaranteeing additional solidarity to those States that are more in difficulty, as Spain and Italy, and working on the after-crisis, when the EU will have to rebuild its own industrial sovereignty, starting from the pharmaceutical industry, in order not to be dependent on global actors such as China”.

The exhausting night marathon was not enough, and today the Eurogroup will meet again….The problem is that this is an old debate.

Which means?
Dutch, Finnish and Austrians think as we were in the “before Corona” world. But there is no more such European and international framework, because the Coronavirus emergency has redefined scenarios and needs for eveyrbody.

French Minister Le Marie thinks that failure is “unthinkable”. Do you agree with him?
Yes, it would have devastating consequences. It could blow up the whole Single Market, because if you don't give all member states access to a Fund on equale and fair terms, inequality will explode. Let me explain: if Germany is able to give, as helicopter money, €50 billion to its companies in crisis, how many other states can do it? Moreover, in the new world that the pandemic is shaping up, one instrument will not be enough, but many instruments acting in concert will be needed.

Which ones?
All those under discussion: an ESM without macroeconomic conditions and with simplified procedures, an EIB with increased investment capacity, the ECB, which is already operating in derogation of its quotas to purchase national bonds, since it has purchased €12 billion of Italian securities and only €2 billion of the German ones; and also a fund for Recovery Bonds. Putting it all together, Europe must be able to mobilize resources of €1500 billion.

How do you rate the opening of Berlin?
It seems to me that there is a rapprochement with the French proposal. But the statements of Finance Minister Olaf Scholz are not enough. I remember that Alcide De Gasperi used to say: Europe needs a sense of urgency and foresight. Never as now, Chancellor Angela Merkel should read again De Gasperi and, instead of acting as a Mutti for her 'German constituency', she should aim high, coming close to Macron’s positions and showing European generosity.

Are you confident that Germany will move?
With France, Italy and Spain in tune, I think there is a chance to convince Germany. And if so, we could get a yes from the whole eurozone, including the Netherlands.

What if they still hesitate?
If there is no unanimity, I think a group of countries should go ahead anyway, starting the recovery bonds with those who are in. Of course, it's not the best way. But, if necessary, it will have to be done.

English translation of an article 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.

10 proposals by the European Federalists

The last weeks have seen the Coronavirus crisis spreading throughout Europe, which has become the world epicentre of the pandemic. Europeans are facing, together, the most severe crisis since the Second World War.

The Union of European Federalists welcomes the measures taken by the European Commission establishing a coronavirus response team and an investment fund as well as expanding the scope of the solidarity fund to support some immediate actions for the crisis. We welcome also the decision of the European Central Bank to set up a new Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program to protect the integrity of the Eurozone and support member states in need to increase their indebtedness to face the crisis. The solidarity shown across European regions to share the care of some severely ill patients is also welcome sign of European cohesion.

At the same time, the Coronavirus crisis made clear that the European Union has no competence on health care, while it has only a support competence in public health, and that it is neither equipped with the necessary instruments to ensure an effective coordination for such typically transnational emergencies. Therefore, Member States remain exclusively competent for the management of their health care systems as well as for the management of the economic and social consequences of the epidemic. Without surprise, the Coronavirus crisis management by the national governments confirms once more the ineffectiveness and the limits of the inter-governmentalism. Lacking a European government with adequate European instruments, national governments are left to protect their own citizens and interests as they can. The result is that today our countries are overwhelmed.

The Union of European Federalists regrets that this prevents, in particular, the Union from giving an effective and coordinated response to the Coronavirus threat and replying to the EU Charter obligation of providing a high level of Human health protection to all EU citizens and people living in the EU. The Union of European Federalists regrets moreover the lack of solidarity amongst Member States as called for by Robert Schuman 70 years ago in his declaration of 9 May 1950.

For these reasons, the Union of European Federalists calls for the following urgent and longer term measures:

  1. It is essential to ensure the unity of the European Union and its internal market. We should reverse, as soon as possible, all decisions to reintroduce internal border restrictions between Schengen countries, which do not help stopping the virus since outbreaks are regional rather than national but risk jeopardizing the smooth functioning of services, such as food provision and health care, that are all the more essential in this moment. The unity of the internal market, as well as the free movement of people and goods, especially relevant in cross-border regions, must be ensured. That’s why only the necessary and well proportional measures shall be taken for the temporary restrictions of people and goods mobility at the EU external borders;
  2. The European Commission should also be given the power to issue rules applicable across the EU on measures to be applied by member states to combat the virus;
  3. A European research consortium should be set to work together as a team to find a vaccine as quickly as possible. EU funding allocated to different research projects is a welcome move, but there is significant added-value in developing joint EU efforts rather than national parallel ones;
  4. The Eurozone should immediately adopt a series of extraordinary and coordinated fiscal measures to mitigate the effects of the current crisis and its consequences on the European economy. The ECB’s government bond buying programme is an essential move but it will not be enough to keep borrowing costs for the most affected member states within tolerable levels. If there has ever been a time for a European response to avoid another long recession, this is it;
  5. The Eurozone must now quickly advance to introduce real European bonds, raising affordable new capital to address the immediate spending need of the European Union and member states to contract the crisis. This could take the form of European Recovery Bonds to be issued by the European Union itself to finance an EU-wide plan to promote EU economic recovery and social cohesion during and after the emergency;
  6. The scope of the European Stability Mechanism should be enlarged to finance the immediate strengthening of the European and national health systems to cope with the health and environmental crisis, which threaten the lives of European citizens, and thus also the economic and financial stability of the EU. The Eurogroup must activate ESM’s support for all affected member states without attaching additional conditionality to it;
  7. The Council should immediately approve a sufficient Multi-annual Financial Framework increasing the budget to at least 1,3% of the EU GDP, as requested by the European Parliament, plus any resources raised through the European Recovery Bonds, and allowing more flexibility, in particular to make it possible to launch a comprehensive European anti-crisis spending plan;

In the longer term

  1. The EU should be provided with fiscal autonomy at European level based on the right to directly raise and spend its own resources – such as the carbon tax, the digital tax or the financial transaction tax. Such fiscal capacity will allow to finance a proper EU budget and efficient European policies starting with the research, industrial and environmental policies, which are proving even more necessary in the context of this crisis. It would also enable the issuance of real European bonds without need of national guarantees by member states;
  2. The EU should be entrusted with real competences in the field of public health which should be a shared competence between the EU and its Member States. As a matter of priority, the EU should start setting the basic rules of a EU policy in the areas of public health, and even possibly health care delivery, so as to provide the Commission with powers to coordinate the response to future epidemics among others and develop strong mechanisms for responding to public health emergencies, as any federal government should do;
  3. The planned Conference on the future of Europe should be turned into a fully-fledged European Convention to draft a new Constitutional Pact to answer current and future European challenges.

We should acknowledge that the world after COVID-19 will not be the same as before. Europeans need to pursue a true eco-social market economy, that makes our society more resilient, strengthening the link between the environment and economic growth, as well as acknowledging the importance that a greener and sustainable economy could have in future crisis of the same nature. Without a systematic integration of ecological factors, neither economic competitiveness nor social justice can be achieved in the long run.

The EU and its member states are going through a decisive test, of effectiveness and solidarity, which will profoundly affect the perception that citizens have of our Union for a long time to come.

This crisis is showing that we need strong and resilient local communities. However, some challenges we are facing today – as this crisis demonstrates – can neither be met at local nor at regional or national level. They require a European response, following the principle of subsidiarity. Federalism is the only institutional system that can provide both subsidiarity and substitution.

All at once, the Coronavirus crisis is an opportunity to address the shortcomings of the Union. We must urgently leverage on the lessons learned during the management of the Great Recession of 2008-2018, when the citizens paid dearly for the lack of solidarity at European level, and develop a European answer to the Coronavirus threat and its economic and social impact to transform the European Union into a federal Union that is a community of solidarity with a shared destiny.

Write your Schuman 2.0 Declaration Contest:

REINVENT AND ENJOY EUROPE!

2020 marks the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration that paved the way for the first European Community. On May 9, 1950, Robert Schuman, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, inspired by Jean Monnet, in his speech in the Salon de l'Horloge of the Quai d'Orsay presented a plan for building the first supranational European community. It proposes to pool the French and German coal and steel production under an international authority, which led in 1951 to the formation of the Economic Communities for the Coal and Steel (ECSC).

This ambitious declaration has remained in European history as the speech that has launched European integration. Europe Day is thus symbolically celebrated on May 9th.

Seventy years later, Europe is again looking for solution for its future. A Conference on the Future of Europe will start soon to discuss proposals to reshape the European Union. The Schuman 2.0 contest gives you the possibility to propose your own statement just like the one launched by Robert Schuman on how to transform Europe to make it close to your dreams.

Do you want to reshape European integration and give the Union a new face?

To do so, we invite you to draft your own Schuman 2.0 Declaration in format of speech of maximum 800 words addressing the challenges of modern Europe. Be bold and imaginative. Submitted declarations will be show-cased on the Schuman 2.0 website and will be presented and discussed in a final event, a Citizens Summit on 9th of May.

Rules & Procedures

Participation in the contest is open from January till 9th of May latest. The participating Declarations should be submitted: 

Declaration can be written and submitted individually or in groups of up to three people on 1-2 pages document of maximum 800 words. The declaration should be signed by the author or all the members of the creative group and the authors should comply with the terms of UEF use and publication of the presented declarations in the frame of the Schuman 2.0 project.

Each participant can present only one declaration to the contest.

The declaration should be written in English or in one of the European Union member state language.

Selection process and criteria

All the declarations submitted to the contest will be published on the Schuman 2.0 website and available to citizens’ for voting. The top ranking Schuman declarations will be presented at the final Citizens Summit on 9th of May.

The jury composed of Sandro GOZI, MEP and President of UEF, Andrew DUFF, President of the Spinelli Group, and Leonie MARTIN, President of JEF, will select and award the most successful declaration of the contest. Selection procedure will be done according to the criteria:

Schuman 2.0 Declaration award

The successful declaration author will be informed via e-mail. The prize to the awarded declaration author will consist of a week-end trip (flight and 2 nights in a nice hotel) to the capital city of a member state of the European Union as chosen by the winner, for two persons (the winner and a person of his/her choice). The price must be used by 30 June 2020.

Write your own Declaration and help us in reshaping Europe!

Ready to participate to the contest?

By submitting the declaration you declare to be the author and free owner of the declaration submitted and  you grant Union of European Federalists the right and permission to use and publicly disclose my declaration submitted to the Schuman 2.0 contest.

Please submit your Schuman 2.0 Declaration in a PDF file, containing your name, your contact information and the declaration, by uploading it!

You can also send your Schuman 2.0 Declaration in PDF file by mail to secretariat@federalists.eu

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).

We understand that Covid-19 is a common threat that may hurt one country sooner than another, but will eventually hurt us all, and can impact our daily life and economy almost like a war.

We consider that this current challenge, the most difficult one Europe and the world are facing since 1945, comes just a few weeks before the 70th Anniversary of the Schuman Declaration; like then, our ambition should be commensurate to the scale of the public health and economic crisis we are facing;

We warn of the further negative effects that un-coordinated national responses would have onEuropeans’ health and on the EU’s economy.

We recall that the interdependence between EU societies requires a single European answer with strict containment measures of the pandemics, and an EU-wide plan to support the Member States’efforts in the short term as well as to relaunch its economic growth afterwards.

We regret that the EU is currently ill equipped to face this challenge, with little competences and powers to ensure an efficient answer to the sanitary crisis.

We welcome the timely decision by the Commission to provide 37 billion euro and financial flexibility to cope with this threat. Maybe it is the most it can do, but it is not enough.

We welcome the decisions of the European Central Bank of 12 and 18th March, particularly as it regards the combined 850 billion euro package of purchases of government and corporate bonds;

We call on the European Commission and Parliament to propose, and on the national governments to adopt (starting with the extraordinary European Council on March 26th) the following urgent measures:

HEALTH UNION

  1. Decide to enhance the EU's coordination and support role in matters of public health, particularly in terms of ability to fight against pandemics – possibly making public health a shared EU competence, eventually through a revision of the Treaties – and to exploit art. 168 TFEU, which already foresees (art. 168§5 TFEU) that certain matters of public health (such as the fight against and prevention of great scourges, which are transnational in nature) be decided upon through the ordinary legislative procedure, and art. 222 TFEU, which foresees for the principle of mutual assistance in case of natural or man-made disaster, to the full.
  2. Entrust the Commission with all necessary powers to effectively coordinate the response to the pandemic, including common European rules to limit and overcome the crisis, organize and manage the most effective use of the necessary pharmaceutical resources and health equipment, and any decision relating to the restriction of the free movement of persons within the European Union, while safeguarding the possibility of articulating specific measures for the various countries on the basis of the different situations.
  3. Extend the aims of the European Stability Mechanism in order to allow its use without conditionality to finance the immediate strengthening of European and national health systems to deal with the pandemic, which is a threat to public health and also to the economic and financial stability of the EU.
  4. Creation of European Health Bonds, issued by the Commission specifically targeting the member states’ efforts in addressing the health emergency, using the ESM capital as a guarantee.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY

  1. Issue by the Union of an EU RECOVERY BOND in the form of a mutualized European Safe Asset managed by the Commission and guaranteed by the EU budget, that could be used initially to finance a pan-European plan for the promotion of economic recovery and social cohesion in the face of the pandemic, as well as to finance the Green Deal, which involves huge investments to radically transform European society and production.
  2. Rapidly adopt the Multiannual Financial Framework, by increasing the EU budget to at least 1.3% of European GDP, as requested by the European Parliament, based on the current structure of budget financing; and with the forecast to reach 2% with new own resources, in order to ensure the provision of crucial European public goods, such as the fight against the pandemic, economic recovery and social cohesion, the Green Deal, management of migration flows and security and defense.
  3. Establish genuine, new own resources - such as taxes (and tariffs) on carbon emissions at the EU border and the revenue from the EU Emission Trading Scheme and its extension, taxes on the income of companies in the digital economy, taxes on speculative financial transactions, profits of the ECB - accrue directly to the European budget, as they are transnational in nature and cannot readily be assigned to any Member State; that, alternatively, these taxes accrue to the budgetary instrument of the euro area, if the decision could be adopted only at euro area level, on the basis of the provisions of art. 136 TFEU.
  4. Proceed without delay to the completion of the Economic and Monetary Union, starting from the proposals contained in the Reports of the 4 Presidents of 2012 and the 5 Presidents of 2015; in the Commission Blueprint of 2011, in the various Commission Communications of 6/12/2017 and 15/1/2019; in the Resolutions of the European Parliament on improving the functioning of the European Union by exploiting the potential of the Lisbon Treaty of 16/2/2017, on the Possible evolution and adaptation of the current institutional structure of the European Union of 16/2/2017, Budgetary capacity of the Eurozone of 16/2/2017, on the State of the debate on the future of Europe of 13/2/2019, particularly as it regards the common European Deposit Insurance and the Euro area budget.
  5. Consider further actions by the ECB, including direct monetary transfers to Euro area households.
  6. Approve the European Unemployment Insurance Scheme.

INSTITUTIONAL

  1. Approve through the general passerelle clause (art. 48 §7 TEU) the transition of fiscal and tax issues to the ordinary legislative procedure, as already proposed also by the European Commission in 2019, with the aim of creating new taxes harmonized at EU level;
  2. Agree on a Joint Inter-Institutional Declaration by 9 May for the launching of the Conference on the Future of Europe, in order to pave the way for a European Convention to draw up a new Constitutional Pact between European citizens and the Member States for a stronger and more cohesive political union, in the light of the proposals expressed and recalled here, to ensure full democratic accountability.

Brussels, Wednesday 25 March 2020

PRESS RELEASE: here

EDITOR’S NOTE:

The Union of European Federalists (UEF) is a pan-European, non-governmental political organisation dedicated to the promotion of European political unity. For more than 70 years UEF has been a leading voice in the promotion of European unity and an early campaigner for key milestones in the development of the European Communities and then the European Union. With 25 national sections and over 400 local groups across Europe, UEF promotes a federal Europe among citizens and political representatives at all levels of government.

PRESS CONTACT
Valentina Presa
valentina.presa@federalists.eu
+32.2.5083030

In a joint statement issued today (Wednesday 25 March), the Spinelli Group and the Union of European Federalists (UEF) urge the European Council to take exceptional action in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Spinelli Group and the European Federalists call on EU Institutions and national governments to take the leap towards the creation of EU Recovery Bonds backed by the EU budget and Europe-wide taxes to finance a strong answer able to address the pandemic and its financial impact on the EU’s economy proactively. It urges for the creation of a European Health Union, that would give the necessary powers to the EU to ensure coordination of emergency measures to address health crises in the future.
ANDREW DUFF, President of the Spinelli Group, said: “Yesterday’s lacklustre Eurogroup passed the buck to the heads of government. The European Council tomorrow must shoulder its constitutional responsibility to secure the cohesion of the EU as a whole, and in particular take decisive action to consolidate the euro. Dealing with the pandemic triggers an enormous increase in public expenditure which will exacerbate the structural imbalance between richer and poorer member states. The EU has for years evaded the issuance of a mutualised safe asset in the form of eurobonds. So the eurozone has survived courtesy of the monetary policy of the European Central Bank but without the support of a common fiscal policy. The coronavirus crisis is time to rectify this flaw in economic and monetary union. The plague risks the lives of all EU citizens equally, and the social and economic impact will be much worse than the asymmetric shock of the financial crash in 2008. The European Council must give practical expression to the theoretical injunction for solidarity between its states and citizens. This is the time for European leaders to push forward the politics of the Union in the federal direction.” Duff added: “Bleating about ‘moral hazard’ was yesterday’s response to the last crisis. Today Europe expects a decisive demonstration of generosity and mutual concern from its leaders, without which the values and principles of our Union are fraudulent.”
"We can't yet measure the impact of COVID-19 on the European economy, but it will certainly be very important," says SANDRO GOZI, Member of the European Parliament and President of the UEF. "We need to prepare now for the worst-case scenario and put in place without delay a strong and bold response to revive the economies of EU countries. Nothing will be the same after containment. We will be entering a new world, we will have to build new Europe. The suspension of the tax rules and the intervention of the ECB will not be enough. The Eurogroup's decision to provide limited and conditioned credits through the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to the most affected states will only cover immediate needs to keep our hospitals afloat. If we don't start issuing European Recovery Bonds immediately, guaranteed by the EU budget, Europe will face an unprecedented financial, social and political crisis. I therefore congratulate President Emmanuel Macron and other national leaders for the proposals made this morning to the Presidents of the Commission and the European Council," concludes Mr Gozi.

The full text of the statement with the proposals of the Spinelli Group and the European Federalists on a European response to the COVID19 crisis can be found below

PRESS CONTACT:
Valentina Presa
valentina.presa@federalists.eu

Sandro Gozi, President of the Union of European Federalists and MEP, publishes an interview on the Italian Huffington Post on what should be the EU reaction to the Corona-virus crisis: "The whole EU is late. Now we need Eurobonds and use the ESM without a memorandum."

Sandro Gozi talks clearly and pragmatically about different key points:

You can read the full original Italian article here: "Lagarde si svegli: serve un piano straordinario della Bce"

It's March 13, 2020, when our Federal Committee member and MEP Domènec Ruiz Devesa publishes an article in Diario Información.

This article is about Europe’s response to the corona virus crisis.

Domènec Ruiz Devesa writes about the economic crisis caused by the pandemic and how much we need to learn from the management of the Great Depression.

Devesa also highlights the importance of a "health union" and of a European anti-crisis plan.

You can read the full original Spanish article here: "La respuesta europea al coronavirus: Unión Sanitaria y plan anticrisis".

The Union of European Federalists (UEF) warmly congratulates its President, Sandro Gozi, on his election as a Member of the European Parliament in the May 2019 European elections.

Sandro Gozi, elected President of the UEF in 2018, has long been a tireless advocate for a more united, democratic, and federal Europe. His election to the European Parliament is not only a personal achievement but also a significant recognition of the values and goals that the UEF promotes.

As an MEP, Sandro Gozi brings to the European Parliament a deep commitment to European integration and a clear vision for a stronger Union capable of delivering on the expectations of its citizens. His new role will provide a powerful platform to advance the federalist agenda and ensure that the voice of committed pro-Europeans is heard at the highest level of EU decision-making.

The UEF looks forward to continuing its close collaboration with President Gozi as he takes on this important new responsibility. We are confident that his presence in the European Parliament will strengthen the fight for a sovereign, democratic, and federal Europe.

Congratulations, Sandro!

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