UEF Online Handbook for Civil society activists, Kickstart your section's Communications activities
This guide is written for the novice and the experts alike, as both will find advice adapted to their skills, as well as important information that all Federalist activists should know. This document will give you the most important information and tips for starting and improving your communications activities.
The best way to use the handbook is to apply as much as possible the advice, information, and lessons it contains. After each page, consider how you can enrich your work with what you just read. Proceed to advanced methods only when you are confident in your mastery of the basic elements.
The European Union and the return of war. The Urgent need for a federal Europe, Sovereign and Democratic
THE EUROPEAN UNION AND RETURN OF THE WAR. (MFE PAPER)
By Paolo Ponzano, Secretary General of the European Movement Italy and lecturer in European Governance at the European College of Parma, Giulia Rossolillo, is Professor of European Union Law at the University of Pavia and director of the political magazine Il Federalista, Salvatore Aloisio, is Researcher of Public Law Institutions and Aggregate Professor of European Union Law at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia., Luca Lionello, is Researcher of European Union Law at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
Introduction by Sandro Gozi, President of the Union of European Federalists
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. Read more...
ACTIVITY REPORT - YEAR 2021
By UEF Secretariat
The year 2021 was an important year for the UEF in many respects. One of the highlights from the organisation's point of view is without doubt the 75th Anniversary of the Union of European Federalists (UEF). For 75 years, the UEF has united generations of passionate European federalists who have been working for a united and federal Europe since the end of the Second World War. The organisation was founded in Paris on 15 and 16 December 1946 out of the conviction that peace for future generations could only be secured through the formation of a European federation. The UEF quickly became a leading voice in the process of European unification and from the outset worked to strengthen the European Communities and later the European Union. Read more
TRANSNATIONAL LISTS FOR THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTIONS
By SIETSE WIJNSMA
The European Parliament is currently discussing in its committee on constitutional affairs the report on the Composition of the Parliament, concerning the distribution of parliamentary seats. As part of this EP report, it is proposed to introduce transnational lists whereby all European citizens can vote on the same candidates in a joint European constituency. As there seem to be many questions and misconceptions going around, this paper seeks to clarify the intention and modalities of transnational lists. Read more...
A EUROPEAN INTEGRATED FORCE FOR AN AMBITIOUS PERMANENT STRUCTURED COOPERATION
By FRANCESCO GUERZONI
This paper aims at showing a possible concept for a Permanent Structured Cooperation designed to provide the CSDP with a European Integrated Force. The first chapter clarifies what concrete objectives such a PESCO should have, the second chapter outlines its structure and legal basis whereas the third chapter shows how PESCO could set up a European Integrated Force, how participating Member States could align their defence cycles and give the EIF a high degree of strategic autonomy. The third chapter also gives some ideas on what relationship could PESCO have with neutral EU Member States and on how it could become the European pillar of NATO. Read more...
BUILDING A COMMON DEFENCE IN A FEDERAL UNION: WHAT CAN EUROPE LEARN FROM THE U.S. EXPERIENCE?
By DOMENICO MORO
This paper explores what lessons Europe can learn from the history of the United States in the development of a federal defence. It first focuses on the history and the challenges of the concept of “dual army” as core feature of the US defence framework since its creation. The US experience shows to Europe that a one-step leap from national armies to a single federal army is hardly possible and that a dual army system, consisting of a federal army dedicated mainly to external operations and national armies mainly dedicated to territorial defence in the strict sense, is more realistic for large continental federal states. Read more...
TOWARDS A EUROPEAN DEFENCE UNION
By FRANCESCO GUERZONI
Europe’s security environment has changed dramatically in the past few years and pressure has increased for the European Union to take responsibility for its own security. This publication provides 10 key federalist proposals towards a European Defence Union that delivers efficient and effective protection for European citizens and helps the EU to assume an active role for stability on the global stage. Read more...
Also available in French:
A BUDGETARY CAPACITY FOR THE EUROZONE: A FEDERALIST VIEW
By DAVID GARCIA and PAOLO VACCA
This Policy Brief attempts to provide some answers from a federalist perspective to the comprehensive series of questions listed by rapporteurs Pervenche Berès MEP and Reimer Böge MEP ahead of the own initiative report on “a budgetary capacity for the Eurozone” in preparation by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee and the Budget Committee of the European Parliament. These questions and answers concern the structure, purpose and functioning of an eventual EMU fiscal capacity, as well as the ways to overcome the main political challenges that this sort of fiscal integration would entail. DOWNLOAD THE BRIEF
FOR A FEDERAL EUROPEAN UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE SCHEME
By DOMENICO MORO
This paper strives to identify how a European Unemployment Insurance Scheme (EUIS) could benefit the euro area which characteristics it should have. It examines the US Unemployment Compensation system, providing considerable insight on the stabilising effects that could be expected from an EUIS, as well as illustrating how a federal-level system can be conciliated with a variety of state social regulations. The paper proposes the creation of an EUIS fully managed at the European level, able to cover a significant part of short-term unemployment benefits. Read more...
BUILDING EUROPEAN ASYLUM AND IMMIGRATION POLICIES AND A EUROPEAN BORDER SERVICE
By ANTON LAZARUS
Geopolitical turmoil, wars, conflicts, poverty, natural disasters and climate change pushed more than a million people to come to Europe in 2015 alone.Such trends look set to continue in 2016. In the absence of a united European system to manage the external border and a comprehensive European Asylum and Immigration Policy, the most exposed Member States are left almost alone to cope with the arrival of large numbers of people and their transit through or settlement in their territories. Read more...
IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY, DEMOCRACY AND LEGITIMACY OF THE EU INSTITUTIONS WITHIN THE CURRENT TREATIES: POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITS (20 PROPOSALS)
By DAVID GARCIA and PAOLO VACCA
This policy brief takes five fundamental benchmarks of governance systems as main objectives and identifies the possibilities offered by the Treaty of Lisbon allowing decision makers to address the institutional flaws, dysfunctions and practices that prevent the Union from working in a fully democratic and effective manner. At the same time, it points out actual limitations imposed by the Union’s current legal framework. The result of this research is a list of 20 proposals that, implemented as a package, could lead to considerable improvements in the functioning of the Union. Read more...
ENHANCED COOPERATION AND ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION: A COMPARISON OF MODELS OF FLEXIBILITY
By GIULIA ROSSOLILLO
Many have proposed that enhanced cooperation might be a useful instrument to complete the Economic and Monetary Union. This prospect presents some problematic aspects, on account of the difficulty of reconciling an instrument designed to provide geographical flexibility and a particular form of differentiation – the EMU – with its own defined membership and which is increasingly tending to constitute a veritable subsystem within the European Union. Read more...
By GUIDO MONTANI
The dramatic clash between creditor and debtor countries in the EU shows that radical reforms are required. In this paper we argue that the EMU is a political project: it is a European public good, which must be provided by a legitimate democratic government. Yet during the crisis, Germany played the role of leading country, and the old dilemma between a German Europe and a European Germany cropped up again. Here we examine two interjurisdictional spillovers caused by asymmetries among the governance and size of the economies in the euro area: the bank-sovereign nexus and the internal deflation trap. Read more...
STRENGTHENING AND DEEPENING THE ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION WITHIN THE CURRENT TREATIES: POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITS (25 PROPOSALS)
By DAVID GARCIA and PAOLO VACCA
This policy brief analyses the possibilities that the Treaty of Lisbon offers in order to deepen and strengthen the Economic and Monetary Union and improve its democratic legitimacy and effectiveness. Read more...
A BUDGET FOR THE EURO AREA: OBJECTIVES, PROCEDURES AND INSTITUTIONS
By DOMENICO MORO
This paper analyses the measures possible to take within and outside the Treaties to strengthen the economic governance of the eurozone, before finally discussing the prospect of equipping it with its own budget, and analysing its objectives, the procedures possible to establish it, and the institutional mechanisms to manage it. Read more...
THE UKRAINIAN CRISIS: LESSONS FOR EU'S FOREIGN AND DEFENCE POLICY
By ELISA LIRONI
When the Ukrainian crisis started in 2013, with the EuroMaidan protestors flooding the whole country from east to west, the EU was baffled and uncertain on how to react. After more than one year from its beginning, the crisis has led the EU to take concrete actions and rethink its relations with Ukraine and Russia, but it has also revealed the limits of EU’s foreign and security policy. Read more...
