Dear Friends,
Hot debates about football at barbecues are probably the most day filling activities these weeks. Citizens with passion for a better Europe will also experience some emotional highs and lows while watching the current emergence of a European Foreign Policy and a European Economic Governance. The Executive Bureau discussed these issues during its first Meeting in our new premises. We found our conclusions in the press, we tabled our position at the EMI Assembly and thanks to the good work of UEF Belgium supported by UEF Groupe Europe you can even find us on TV. Find out about this and much more in the below Update. 

Sincerely yours,
Christian Wenning
UEF Secretary General 

On the first weekend of June, UEF Executive Bureau held its meeting and for the first time had an opportunity to be welcomed in the new UEF premises.
Fruitful discussions on the European Foreign Policy led to a release of an announcement to media, expressing Federalists' concerns on the delay of setting up the European External Action Service. New UEF communication strategy was successfully presented by the Secretariat and was unanimously approved by the bureau members, letting UEF Secretariat to start its work on the development of the new and fresh communication approach.

As from 11th of June, tables of contents and PDF documents of all the issues of the political review Il Federalista/The Federalist/Le Fédéraliste published since 1959, when it was founded by Mario Albertini, are available at www.thefederalist.eu.

The Austrian UEF section, Europäische Föderalistische Bewegung (EFB), recently hold an 80th birthday celebration for the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and actual vice-president of EFB, Willibald Pahr. The celebration took place on Sunday, 20th of June in the lounge of the Viennese Museum of Modern Art. Subsequent to a laudatio given by the section´s president, Friedhelm Frischenschlager, and a short piano concert, a couple of young people moderated an interview with M. Pahr about his diplomatic career, his achievements to European policy objectives and his visions about the European Union´s future.

On 10th of June a delegation of twelve federalists from UEF and JEF coordinated by Michele Ciavarini Azzi - Paolo Clarotti, Lothar Jaschke, Françoise Jurion, Ruben Loodts, Arielle Rouby, Jean-Jacques Schul, Angelique Vandekerckhove, Robert Verschooten, Francesca Crippa, Riccardo Viaggi, Catherine Vieilledent and Michele Ciavarini Azzi - participated, as part of the public, in a political debate within the EP on the economic crisis and its European prospects.
The debate, co-organised by Europarl TV and Euronews, and shown as a TV program eight times, put together around a table the president of the EP, Jerzy Buzek, and the leaders of the political groups, Joseph Daul (EPP), Martin Schultz (S&D), Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Greens/EFA).   To see the TV program, click here.

Upon the invitation of the UEF Group Europe, more than 100 members of  European staff and of the general public met on 2nd of June with the two EP rapporteurs , Elmar Brok and Guy Verhofstadt, to discuss the creation of the EEAS. The staff expressed their concern about the unity and permanence of the European Civil Service and the preservation of the EU's policy acquis in external relations. The Group Europe of the UEF was glad to hear both MEPs reaffirm their strong commitment to an efficient service for the EU's global action and to the integrative European method, ensuring the loyalty and fair treatment of its agents.
The rapporteurs made clear that a majority in Parliament is determined to use its full powers to support the following lines of action:
- The creation of the EEAS is an opportunity for the emergence of a European external policy combining each of the European external competences;
- As such, as the majority of these competences are by Treaty of the responsibility of the Commission, the service has to be as closely linked to the Commission as possible, particularly regarding budgetary and administrative matters;
- Such a link is also for the Parliament a prerequisite to guarantee political responsibility of the VPHR before the Parliament, which the Parliament views as essential for a democratic Europe, taking particularly into account the new role of the Parliament under the Lisbon treaty;
- To give ground to this political control of the parliament, all decisions concerning the external aspects of Community policies will have to be taken by the Commission as a body, even when it is integrating some actions concerning the EFSP competences of the VP-HR;
- Regarding staff matters, it is of the greatest importance that each member of the EEAS staff has a single loyalty towards Europe; the Parliament will secure that when co-deciding with the Council on the Staff Regulation.

Henrik Kröner, UEF Secretary General Christian Wenning, Jo Leinen and Savino Rua (see picture) represented the 9 votes of the UEF in the Federal Assembly of the European Movement International (EMI) in Toledo (Spain) earlier this month.
UEF attended the culturally and politically rich program and contributed to the current political discussion with a proposal for a Resolution on the economic situation in the EU. Together with other drafted opinions on that issue our position will be acknowledged in an EMI position that will be drafted soon. On top, UEF had the opportunity to show a presentation of our current projects. One of the many highlights was the election of former Bulgarian EU-Commissioner Meglena Kuneva to a Vice-President of EMI. We congratulate her!
http://www.federaleurope.org/uef/news/alain-lamassoure-a-case-for-an-optimistic-federalism/

On 24th of June 17: 30, the Federal Union (UEF UK) and the Federal Trust organize a seminar on “Lessons for Europe from the Greek crisis”.
A seminar to discuss the lessons from the economic crisis in Greece and elsewhere, specifically:
• What economic strategies might be followed by eurozone countries in future?
• What institutional arrangements need to be adopted by the EU or the eurozone to make these strategies possible?
• What role, if any, there might be for Britain in this?
Speakers: Graham Bishop (economic commentator, grahambishop.com)
John Palmer (former European editor, the Guardian)
George Irvin (Professorial Research Fellow, SOAS, London)
Chaired by Professor Stephen Haseler (Director, Global Policy Institute, London Metropolitan University), the event will be held at London Metropolitan University, 31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY at 5.30 pm, finishing by 7 pm, with a drinks reception afterwards.

The Young European Federalists (JEF) have released the new issue of their bi-weekly Newsletter JEF-INFO. To find the full version of the newsletter at the homepage of JEF Europe, click here.