A Pact for Europe: 16 youth organizations join forces to create new propositions to bring to the attention of the institutions in sight of the European elections. Convened by JEF Italy, 15 among the main Italian non-party associations have made an appointment in Lampedusa (Italy), on September 30th, on the occasion of “A Europe of Rights” organized by the October 3rd Committee. The necessity of a more democratic, fair and sustainable European Union is more and more evident to deal effectively with the structural crisis of our time. For this reason, JEF Italy, together with Fridays for Future, Legambiente, Giovani delle ACLI, Europiamo, EUMANS, Natura Comune (Common Nature), Studi Centro, Comitato 3 Ottobre (October 3rd Committee), Movimento Europeo Giovani (Young European Movement), Youthmed, Giovani di Azione Cattolica, Associazione Piero Capone, Base Italia, ESN e One Hour For Europe, decided to take sides on the future of the Union, by intervening right where the contradictions of the current intergovernmental European set-up are most evident, and therefore by signing the pact “EUROPA PORTA EUROPA. A pact for choosing tomorrow’s Europe”.
On the 10th anniversary of the Lampedusa shipwreck, they decided to start from the answers that the EU and governments are giving to the migratory phenomenon. It is a structural phenomenon in the history of Humanity, and not a contingent crisis, which forces us to choose who to be as Europeans in front of what UN has called “the most mortal border of the world”, a border that our society is guilty of witnessing, while human rights are trampled upon and the ’stateless of the 21st century’ are left to drown.
«Never more than today has the future of Europe been decided at its borders, in Lampedusa as in Kiev, where the limits of states and the EU are dramatically visible. Only a federal Europe with a single migration and foreign policy can safeguard peace and human rights.»
said Matteo Gori, Secretary General of JEF Italy.
The pact, signed by the 16 participating associations, calls for a federal reform of the EU treaties, as planned even in the draft project discussed in the European Parliament, and it develops in seven points. These range from the European management of migration phenomena, in order to protect the dignity of individuals, to the reinforcement of democracy; a federal budget set democratically and fed by own resources, allowing for the full realisation the subsidiarity principle together with territorial and intergenerational solidarity; a united foreign policy and a common European defence; the implementation and consolidation of the participatory experience initiated with the Conference on the Future of Europe, establishing forms of increasingly continuous and structured dialogue within democratic processes with civil society, both young and old; and finally, the consolidation and creation of new European institutions capable of facilitating the fight against the climate crisis and its consequences on the environment and human life.
The next European elections will be a crucial moment for the future of the EU: this pact represents a call for a clear and bold choice for a real federal Europe, capable of tackling effectively the global challenges.
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