The Covid crisis has made us all too aware of both our precarity and our interdependent destinies. It has shown us the importance of Europe in this new multipolar world, and the need to unite against the immense ecological, economic, social, health and security challenges facing our societies. Today the Europeans have an opportunity to make the European Union the...
During one year Italy will chair for the first time the G20 – the network of the more developed countries in the world for their global GNP (90%), the import/export (80%), the inhabitants (2/3 of the humanity), the cultivated lands (60%) and the agricultural products (80%) – and mainly the meeting of the leaders that will take place in Bari...
The agreement reached by the European Council on 21 July 2020 has been widely reported as a major breakthrough in European integration. Rightly so. For the first time, a very large bond issuance (to the tune of 750 billion euros) by the European Union will partly finance budgetary expenses and direct transfers to the Member States and sectors most in...
The European Union is at a crucial turning point. The concrete implementation of the Recovery Plan, presented by the European Commission to save and relaunch a sustainable European economy, is bringing out conflicts on a decisive point. Should European financial resources allocated to national governments be linked to respect for the rule of law or not? Some governments, such as...
The Conference on the future of Europe should be convened by the end of the year. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced it in her inaugural speech and the European Parliament recently urged that it be convened before the end of 2020 (Resolution of 18/6/20). Yet some unexpected obstacles risk drastically reducing the significance of...
A three-part common framework to reflect on the future of NATO The crises in Ukraine (2014) and Belarus (2020) show that the problem of security and peace in Europe needs a new solution, going beyond the old constraints of the Cold War. The three short chapters presented here draw on Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1987 proposal for a Common European Home, a...
Did it go as we wanted, what are the benefits and how to continue? CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION[1]: “The peoples of Europe, in creating an ever closer union among them, are resolved to share a peaceful future based on common values.” What do you think, in pursuing an association treaty with Ukraine, has Europe respected this...
A turning point for Europe and the World The coronavirus outbreak has shaken Europe and the whole world. It has put a stop to our most important freedoms, changing our way of living and working. Our healthcare systems have been put under severe stress and, most sadly, people have lost their loved ones. The public health challenge quickly became the...
European Parliament calls for paradigm shift Ahead of the presentation of the European Commission’s “Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability”, announced for October 2020, the European Parliament was called on July 10 for a tightening of chemicals policy and concrete ban on toxic chemicals in a resolution initiated by the Greens/EFA Group. Endocrine disruptors in cosmetics, toys and food packaging and long-lasting...
POLICY PAPER – Abstract – This paper addresses two questions:
1. What is the European Union?
2. Did European Philosophy shape the creation of EU? If so, how?
Despite the paradoxical status of a polity still floating between the ideal status of a Political Union, in the form of a Parliamentary Super-National Democracy, as stated by the Lisbon Treaty now in force, and the present reality of an inter-governmental organism which has been governed most of the time by national prevailing interests, the EU disposes of all the institutional means to stop the process of dissolution which has gone on for the last fifteen years or so, and to start a new phase of political integration. After the Covid19 Crisis we are witnessing rejoicing signals of a turn in the right direction: an opportunity which should definitely not be wasted, but accompanied and supported by all European citizen of good will. The two levers of this process are the constitutional principles embedded in the Treaty of Lisbon and the principle of participatory democracy, allowing new and compelling forms of citizens’ legislative initiative.
Other
Funding the Corona Recovery by curbing tax dumping and money laundering – Petition
Funding the Corona Recovery by curbing tax dumping and money laundering
European Solidarity Now! – Petition
