Happy New Year!

Europe United have had a hectic first year. Thank you all for your engagement and passion. And thank you all, who have helped to get the federalist message out. You deserve great praise for your work.

2007 will bring new challenges. Most importantly, we need to break the old view of politics being only national, because there is another way, The European Way. Building Europe as an entity is highest on our agenda, - not defending petty national interests.

On a personal note, I have started working on a book about our future. The first chapter can be found from: http://book.europeunited.org

Yours,

Aki Paasovaara
The President
(on vacation until Feb.)

Europe United first to sign European Citizens’ Initiative

Mikael Latreille, Europe United Board member, was the first to officially sign the petition of the European Citizens’ Initiative which launched its signature campaign on 9 November 2006 at the European Parliament.

“Citizens are the heart of democracy. They must be given the option to petition those that govern them and launch debates on issues that are important to them if those in power do not do so,” said Mr Latreille.

The European Citizens’ Initiative is a campaign whose goal is to establish the right of European citizens to petition the European Commission, which at present is the only European institution with the right to initiate law in the Union. The right to petition the Commission was included in article 47 of the European constitution, but the rejection of the constitution by French and Dutch votes shelved that right to the cupboard.

Starting with the signatures collected at the press conference, ECI is seeking one million signatures which will be presented to the European Council and the Commission during the German presidency of the European Union in the spring of 2006. The aim is to implement the right of citizens’ initiative by the end of 2007.

“With this campaign we want to enable citizens to make proposals for concrete changes in European law and politics,” said Carsten Berg, General Coordinator of the campaign, “It would be the first trans-national element of democracy where European citizens’ get together and change the way Europe works.”

The petition reads as follows: “We, the undersigned, want the European Union to give legal force to the European Citizens’ Initiative, where one million European citizens can call on the European Commission to propose a change to European law.”

What Europe United members can do
We urge all European United members to sign the electronic petition available on the front page of their website. You can also download a petition in your language, gather signatures and send it back to the campaign. A number of our members have already signed the petition. Members can also contact the regional coordinators to get involve on the ground.

Europe United supports the European Citizens’ Initiative. At present Europe United as an organisation cannot donate money since all the money in our account went towards organising the convention in Brussels which took place on 28-29 October. Should we have enough money to donate before the end of the campaign we will certainly doing so.

Quotes from participating Members of Parliament
Gerard Onesta, Vice-President of the Parliament (MEP, France): “We need two things: a piece of paper, a pen and from there democracy begins.”

Edith Mastenbroek, (MEP, Netherlands) “The elements of the constitution that do work and that could help us out of this gridlock deserve our full political support.”

“This is not the first recent citizens’ initiative. There is already one that has received a million signatures. It was a request to the European Commission to start an initiative on our two seats. Should it be here in Brussels or in Strasbourg?”

“I don’t see a reason not to do this and I don’t understand what people that don’t agree with this are afraid of. You could say that there is the argument that it would be cherry picking from the constitution. This is a very good cherry and I think we should pick it so I fully support this initiative.”

Alexander Alvaro, (MEP, Germany) “Concerning our initiative that we have done [one seat initiative] it’s quite remarkable that it’s been two months [since we handed it to the Commission] and we haven’t received any sort of answer. The Commission and Council are not dealing with the issue. Although article 47 is not in force there has to be procedures of how to follow up with citizens’ initiatives, just receiving it is a nice gesture but it doesn’t solve the problem we have right now.”

More on the European Citizens’ Initiative
One of our very own members, Gabriel Fragnière, former rector of the College of Europe, actively supports the campaign. An interview by the Robin Good Media Network can be seen in the page below.

> Go to Robin Good Media Network article

The European Citizens' Initiative Website

> www.citizens-initiative.eu

Pictures captions:
Picture 1: Europe United Board member Mikael Latreille signing the European Citizens Initiative petition held by Gerard Onesta, Vice-President of the European Parliament.

Picture 2: Europe United Board member Jean Pepi follows suit in signing the petition.

Chat to the Board

Dear all,
For all of you who have the MSN Messenger you can now chat live with Board members in the evenings.
We will see how many hours a week we can dedicate to this, but hopefully an hour 3-5 times a week in the beginning.
The username to contact us is euboard@passport.com
That is not an email address and we cannot receive nor sent emails from that account. It is only used for MSN Messenger.
Hope this will speed up some processes.
Best,
Ivan
Board Chairman

Minutes of 5th Board Meeting of 2nd Board

Chair: Francesco Cerminara
Participants:
1. Aki Paasovaara (Aki) - Party President
2. Ivan Bavcevic (Ivan) – Board Chairman, Internal Relations Manager
3. Mikael Latreille (mikael) – European Office Coordinator
4. Pietro de Matteis (MrEuro) – Party Policies and European Affairs Coordinator
5. Brigit McCone (brigitmccone)– Senate Chair, Recruitment Officer
6. Francesco Cerminara (frankiehnrg) – Public Relations Manager
7. Andree van Hoevelaken (andreeke) – Organizational Officer
8. Jean Pepi (pepijean) – Secretary General

DATE: 29.10.2007.

PLACE: University Foundation, Brussels, Belgium

Meeting duration: 12:00-13:45h CET


Agenda:
Agenda was proposed and unanimously accepted at the beginning of the meeting.

1. Accepting new Board members
2. Registering party name (trade mark) in all European countries
3. Membership fees
4. Standard Communications kit
5. Party slogan
6. Report on European Citizen Initiative
7. Brussels Convention Budget
8. May 2007 Convention location
9. Board Meetings between conventions
10. Leadership Academy report
11. Presenting strategies to DG Communications
12. Participating in external conferences and initiatives
13. Party policy groups

Due to food poisoning Kevin Hood, Arbitration Tribunal Chair, was not able to participate in the Board meeting.

Minutes:
Point 1:Upon the proposal by Aki Paasovaara, Party President, the Board accepted 2 new Board members: Mr. Jean Pepi as the party's Secretary General and Mr. Andree van Hoevelaken as the Organizational Officer.

Point 2:Understanding the imporatance of registering and protecting the name of «Europe United» in all European countries the Board will organize a research on what it takes to achieve that goal. Brigit will compile a list of local member contacts in all countries who could do the job and forward it to Pietro and Danilo to organize it.

Point 3:
Upon the proposal of a Convention working group the Board unanimously decided to introduce membership fees as of January 1st 2007. Understing the importance of financial accountability and transparency, party members will be provided by the 2007 Budget, costs of the 2006 Brussels convention and the description and explanation of all that was done and achieved so far and plan for the next year. Ivan and Francesco will be responsible for this task.

Point 4:
Jean will make the proposal for the complete Communications kit in English within a month.
Andree will provide us with the Communications guidelines in English and German within 3 weeks.

Point 5:
Considering it is difficult to find a slogan which is clear in all languages the Board will organize slogan research and competition with a prize for the winner.

Point 6:
The Public Relations Officer reported on a new initiative supported by 80 European NGOs launching a public campaign Europe-wide to collect citizens’ signatures calling for the introduction of a right of initiative in the EU. This initiative would require the European Commission to respond to a proposed change in European law signed by at least one million EU citizens. It would thus enable European citizens and civil society organizations to directly influence the political agenda of the EU for the first time in history. The public launch of the ECI campaign is scheduled for Nov 9th. The Board decided it would be most helpful for the party to support such initiative. The European Office Co-ordinator will represent Europe United at the public launch. The Secretary General pledges his support, other engagements permitting. The Board decided to host a banner on the Party's website to incentive members to pledge their support to the European Citizen Initiative. In return for its support, the Party would receive public acknowledgement together with the other organisations supporting the initiative. The Board unanimously agree this will help us to build the party and it will provide us with much needed public exposure.

Point 7:
The complete costs of the 2006 Brussels Convention to be assembled in report by Mikael. Total cost of EUR1070. Total funds in our Danish account is about EUR350. EUR345 were collected at the convention. The rest of the costs were paid by Mikael and Ivan.

Point 8:
Within 2 weeks, Board members will propose 3-5 cities as the options for the next convention and will submit the names to Forum for voting. The city winning the most votes will be chosen as the location of the 2007 May convention.

Point 9:
Board meetings to be held in person at least 4 times a year, once for each the spring and authom convention and 2 times in between the conventions. The next live meeting to be held in London in the last week of January 2007. Exact date and time to be determined.

Point 10:
Ivan to report over email and to be discussed via skype and forum.

Points 11 and 12:
Pietro to report over email and to be discussed via skype and forum.

Point 13:
All Board members agree that the Policy workgroups should continue existing as research groups that use Forum for discussion and Wiki for resources and amendment proposals.

New workgroup and reading at the CE program

Dear friends and party members,

I am pleased to announce the creation of the second policy workgroup on EU structure and governance under the chairmanship of Jean-Pierre LaRochelle, with Brigit McCone, Lukas Klausner and Joao Mendes as initial members. I invite you to follow the group's work and to contact Jean-Pierre (euromaestro) if you are interested in joining the group.

I also wish to inform you that I have added Jean-François Drevet's article 'L’Union européenne et ses périphéries' (in French) at the Continuing Education Program. This is a most interesting paper originally published in the French magazine Futuribles, which I encourage you to read with the greatest attention. Due to copyright restrictions, you will have to login to access document. Please refer to the post at the forum for instructions.

As always, you can discuss this article at Europe United's main forum and suggest further readings for the program.

See you at the upcoming Convention.

Josep Ll. Ortega

Links to sections on the wiki site

Dear friends,

I would like to take this opportunity to repeat an open call for participation in the continuing education program and the policy workgroups.

Up to now, there are three readings in the CE program: "The United States of Europe " by Guy Verhofstadt, the Intervention of M. Nicolas Sarkozy before the Friends of Europe (Original text in French), and the chapter by FraserCameron on "Widening and Deepening". In a few days I will add a new article by Jean-François Drevet on 'L’Union européenne et ses périphéries' (in French). So far, there have been few readers among party members and it would be good to change this to make the effort of keeping the program going worthwhile.

There is also good news about the policy workgroups. The group on foreign policy has been constituted under my chairmanship with Jean-Pierre LaRochelle, Tomas Ruta, Ben Singleton and Andree van Hoevelaken. You may wish to have a look at the corresponding section of the wiki to see how the work is being structured. In a few words, there is a front page for the whole section on policy workgroups, with links to each specific workgroup sub-section. This includes pages for links, books, related documents and EU platform and collected amendments. In the particular case of foreign policy, there is a page for specific issues each of which will have its own links, books, related documents and EU declarations or new official policies. Of course, most of the content needs yet to be developed.

Please contact me if you are interested in joining the workgroup on foreign policy or chairing a new group on EU structure or science. Any suggestions will be most welcomed.

I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible in the upcoming convention at Brussels.

Best regards,

Josep Ll. Ortega

Policy workgroups & New appointments

Dear friends and party members,
I am glad to inform you that the party's president, Aki Paasovaara, has backed my proposal for the creation of workgroups and has asked me to manage the groups in co-ordination with Senate Chair Brigit McCone and Board Chair Ivan Bavcevic.

The workgroup's goals will be (1) to energize and organize discussion on the policy, (2) to orderly collect and classify amendments in a centralized and updated webpage, (3) to slowly aggregate relevant information (links, references, documents, legislation, etc.), (4) to prepare reports that can form the basis for final voting by Europe United, (5) to publish the results (internally and externally), and (6) respond for the current events belonging under the policy area.

The process for creating workgroups requires any member or group of members contacting me and suggesting a chair for the group. Under my proposal, the president will approve the chair appointment, and the group chair will receive administrative rights for the corresponding forum and wiki areas. The first task after formation of the group will be to evaluate whether the specific platform needs to be revised. Then the section at the wiki needs to be set up (I will help in that until the chair can work on the wiki autonomously). The discussion will take place in the main forum, and reports, recommendations, publications, press releases etc. will be strongly linked from the forum (as an announcement).

We would like to start by establishing workgroups on foreign policy, EU structure and science as test cases. Please contact me (jllortega@gmail.com) if you are interested in chairing or joining a workgorup on any of the above policies.

I look forward to some good work ahead, but I am convinced it will also give us with ample opportunity for learning and developing friendship.

Best regards

Josep Ll. Ortega

New Appointments

Although the Arbitration Tribunal (Europe United Court) has only issued one decision to date, as the party grows there will be more work for the Tribunal to do. It is very important that all party institutions are transparent and impartial. They also need to command the confidence of party members.

Aki Paasovaara, the party president, has therefore agreed that it would be sensible to fill the two vacant posts on the Tribunal now rather than at a later date. The two new arbitrators are:

João Mendes, law student, Lisbon, Portugal. Username: JoaoMendes
Araceli Turmo, law student, Paris, France. Username araceli

Please join us in welcoming Araceli and João!

Member quotes September 22th

Araceli Turmo. I think we can encourage a pan-European orientation that would tend to allow euthanasia at least in its passive form...

Josep Ortega. While all languages, including minority languages must be protected for the sake of cultural diversity and popular bonding to them, too often they are enforced to promote political nationalism and gain support for nationalistic ideology and parties.

Brigit McCone. I actually don't much like the idea of English as the common language, because it will quickly be stripped of its cultural context and respect (as is already happening). But I have to recognise that English, as the language that most Europeans are statistically familiar with, would probably be less of a strain to switch to than esperanto

Europe United reaches the one million page views landmark

Europe United, the pro-European, pan-European federalist party, today announced its site (www.europeunited.org) reached a landmark of one million page views.

The site gained 12.572 visits in August 2006, which represents growth of 342% from January 2006. Although Europe United site has in general enjoyed significant +20% monthly growth, the site has recently successfully accelerated its growth rates.

"Europe United's steady growth is the result of continuos recruiting efforts and increasing recognition of the Europe United's work in becoming real and innovative alternative for traditional national political parties," said Aki Paasovaara, President of Europe United.

"With the successful installation of the language pages, our leveraged reach to other than English speaking audience is on track. We are moving aggressively with additional recruiting efforts of non-English speaking public. Initiatives to improve membership growth rate will also continue."

The page had recorded 83.940 unique visits by 20.09.2006 and the party estimates that it will reach 100.000 web page visits before its 2nd Federalist Convention, to be held in Brussels, 26th -29th October.

About Europe United, The European Party
Founded in 2005, Europe United is a pro-European, pan-European federalist political party which advocates further European integration and the establishment of Federal Europe, with members representing 48 European countries.

For more information, contact:

Europe United
Telephone: +45-3011 8000
Email: contact@europeunited.org

Interview of the party leader

An article published 14.09.2006 in Kaleva, one of the biggest newspaper in Finland. Click here to see the original article in Finnish (pdf. file).

By Tarja Ranta-Ala-aho.

From A Little Village To A Federalist Party Leader

"Old parties have forgotten the new European generation," says the new party leader.

"There is a new European generation which has begun to make their visions reality. When the work is done we will live, not in a union, but in a "United States of Europe"." So says Aki Paasovaara from Kainuu, Finland, currently resident in Copenhagen. He has established a pan-European party which works openly for a federal Europe.

At present there are members from 48 countries in party leader Paasovaara's group, while the membership numbers 500. That is not very many per country, but Aki Paasovaara is certain that at the end of the road lies something great and unique.

Paasovaara, who spent his childhood in the little village of Hossa, has seen and experienced a lot for his age. He was born and spent his teens in Kajaani. After that came the United States and London. He got his Masters in Economics from his current home country, Denmark, where he was enchanted by his future wife seven years ago. Paasovaara sees himself as European, not Danish or Finnish. Nonetheless, the smalltown Hossa boy still rises to the surface sometimes. According to Paasovaara, politicians have forgotten people like that. "We have the same agenda everywhere. We are a generation which feels European. And we want deeper integration," Paasovaara explains.

Politics All His Life
While his mission is unique, Aki Paasovaara is not in politics for first time. For Paasovaara, nuorsuomalaiset (Finnish party) initial steps and short lived success are familiar experiences. When Risto E.J. Penttilä and Jukka Tarkka were members of the Finnish parliament, Paasovaara was then aged 19 and was working for the party headquarters. It could sound like it, but Europe United is not a new liberal movement. According to Paasovaara, the party's economical policies are rather liberal, while, for example, the party's environment policies greener than the Greens'. Prioritised above all are a Nordic concept of the 'safety net', equality and caring.

Which Finnish party could be closest to Mr. Paasovaara's party? "It is not the Centre Party (Finnish: Keskusta), but we are somewhere in the middle of the left-right axis." He sees a lot of similarities between the Danish Social Liberal Party and Europe United.

Passion And Volunteer Work
Paasovaara had been thinking of taking active part in politics for a long time, when the final wake-up call came. The French and Duch "no" put fire in the federalist. Aki Paasovaara and others have great plans and the young Europeans are not shy, but know exactly what they want. They want a united, strong and dynamic Europe. "The only problem is the missing link between EU and its citizens and therefore we need a new kind of political party. A party which has the backbone to fight for United Europe!" So goes the manifesto on their web site.

The old parties were not enough for Paasovaara, even knowing that the chosen way would be much rockier and harder than joining an established party. They would have the money, media connections and long-standing supporters. Now there are volunteers, passion and their leaders' savings.

Headquarters to Brussels
The current headquarters are located in Denmark, simply because Paasovaara lives there. However, establishing a party in Denmark is easy, a matter of notifying the authorities. The office is located in Greater-Copenhagen, Ishoj, but the headquarters will be established in Brussels. But how does a trans-national party work? Paasovaara explains that the headquarter is responsible for co-ordinating and European level issues. Each national chapter will sign a paper, which defines which issues belong to the national level and which should be dealt on European level. In unclear cases, the party has established an internal Federal Arbitration Tribunal, lead by Kevin Hood, a lawyer from Great-Britain.

The journey has just begun, but one of the destinations is already getting closer. 2009's Europarliament elections. The countries with most developed branches will take part in the trial. Finland can be one of them.