The first Earth Summit, held at Rio in 1992, was defined "the summit to save the world". The assessment that can be drawn up ten years later is disappointing. No pledge subscribed at Rio has been honored. The condition of the global environment has worsened, the gap between rich and poor countries has deepened, world population continues growing. The end of the Cold War has demonstrated the difficulties of the transition toward a new world order. The governments which gathered at Johannesburg have lost the Rio’s momentum. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan used this brilliant formula to sum up the mood of the conference: "There is a time for idealism and a time for engagement in reality". He concluded that, within ten years, it will be possible to assess the commitments taken in Johannesburg.

Sustainable Development and Global Market
The slogan used by the US government in Johannesburg was "the free market will save the world". The EU representatives replied that the commitment to promote clean industries cannot replace rules.
Of course, it can be useful, and even necessary, to bring industry involvement in projects to protect the environment. The transition toward a new mode of production and especially a new transportation system based on the reduction of the air pollution demands an involvement of firms. However we cannot expect the achievement of collective values such as environmental protection or the development of poor countries from the invisible hand of world market. If such goals are pursued, the only possible course is to have more controls at international level.
Without world political institutions endowed with real powers to regulate globalization, inequalities and international disorder is destined to worsen.

The North-South Gap and the Environmental Challenge
From Johannesburg came a general recognition that, to win the environmental challenge and to improve the quality of life, the gap between North and South must be bridged. For instance, one of the commitments taken at Johannesburg was the 50% reduction of the number of people without access to clean water. But, as regards global warming, it should be taken into account that it is brought about mostly by emissions coming from the most developed countries. It is well-known that a quarter of the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions is generated in the US. Is humankind’s survival compatible with the current trend which sees the US and the other rich countries continuing to burn oil without limits? It is difficult to believe it if the consumption economy spreads to the developing countries and world population will reach 8 or 9 billion in the next 50 years.
Therefore, it is incumbent on the most developed countries to change their current energy consumption pattern and lead the way to a sustainable development model for the world.

Toward the Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol
The most significant result of the Johannesburg summit is the achievement of the number of countries necessary for the Kyoto Protocol to come into force, in spite of the US opposition. After the recent ratifications of Japan and China and the announcement that Russia will ratify soon, the threshold of 55% of the total amount of the gas emissions that bring about the greenhouse effect has been overcome. Notwithstanding its unilateralism, in Johannesburg the US found strong allies who supported its conservative position, for instance oil-producing countries. This alliance defeated the EU countries proposal to set targets for increases in production of renewable energy.

American Unilateralism versus European Multilateralism
At present, American nationalism is triumphant. The US government does not confine itself to the opposition to the Kyoto Protocol. The list of treaties and conventions rejected by the US is impressive. It includes important matters such as the land-mines, the comprehensive nuclear test ban, the anti-ballistic missiles, the International Criminal Court, the elimination of discrimination against women, the rights of the child. All this demonstrates the increasing isolation of the US from the international community and the United Nations.
In addition, the US, in its fight against international terrorism, seems ready to resort to force and to proceed alone even without the support of the international community. From this attitude it is gaining dynamism but losing universalism. This is an extremely troubling trend.
It is above all the political division of Europe that allows American unilateralism to continue unchallenged. In areas such as environmental policy, where it is able to behave as a single actor, the EU plays a progressive international role. For example, in the ratification process of the Kyoto Protocol the EU is a reference point for the world. The result is that the US opposition to the Protocol seems to have been defeated.
But, in regard to foreign policy, the EU, due to its political division, is unable to speak with one single voice and continues to be subordinated to the US. Thus the EU finds itself obliged to undergo the initiatives of its senior partner. The fact is that the US is opposed to any limitation of its sovereignty by any international organization. To defeat this opposition, a new world order should arise. American unilateralism is the result of the end of the old bipolar world order and the lack of a new world order. In the world there is only one political force that can check the US new propensity to run the world according to its own political priorities. It is the EU, provided that it is transformed into a real Federation.
The birth of the European Federation will change the world balance of power. It will allow Europe to negotiate with the US on an equal footing, will relieve the US of some of its overwhelming world responsibilities, will give the EU the authority to push the US to co-operate with the UN and the other international organizations and will open the way for the participation of other regions of the world in the joint management of world order.

The Need for a World Environmental Authority
In a more and more closely interdependent world, humankind should unite to solve global issues. Long, laborious and exhausting negotiations are an inadequate method to address international issues. The most difficult issue governments failed to solve in Johannesburg was to invent mechanisms of world government. And yet a World Environmental Authority, a proposal promoted for a long time by world federalists, was supported by President Chirac, but was stopped, owing to the opposition it met even within the EU. Despite this defeat, world federalists should continue to promote this project in other multilateral fora, since it can stimulate the germination of a seed of supranationality within the framework of the UN.

Through the Application of The Rule of Law

For the past two decades virtually every proposal to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict has been political, in part recognizing that neither military force nor terrorism can, in the long run, bring about agreement between the contending forces on so many complex issues. In part, however, since the end of the Cold War, the political approach has basically recognized that only the United States, the world's sole superpower, has both the influence and power to impose upon the Israelis and Palestinians a compromise settlement. Over the past decade, the U.S. has declined to employ the necessary muscle to "persuade" both parties that they are required to find the common ground for a permanent agreement or forfeit the annual cash subsidies ($3 billion for Israel, $350 million for the Palestinians) upon which they have become so dependent, not to mention the military hardware and the technologically-advanced upgrade underpinning the uninterrupted superiority of Israel's military forces in the region.
During the final months of his second term, President Bill Clinton invested considerable energy and time, as well as political capital, in seeking a solution to the conflict, but he refused to use the trump card of annual economic aid as his "Big Stick," especially in respect to the Israelis.
Domestic electoral considerations no doubt influenced that decision, even more so when George W. Bush succeeded Clinton in 2001. Since then both ideology and electoral considerations have persuaded the Bush White House to ignore the crisis for more than a year. When events finally compelled Bush to insert himself in the effort to find a solution, he demanded the removal of Arafat as the Palestinian leader while basically approving, or at least generally accepting, most of Prime Minister Sharon's responses, even though they substantially deflected the process from pursuing a peaceful settlement.
It is less than likely that the Bush Administration, so long as its policies are determined by Messrs. Cheney and Rumsfeld, will undertake a serious initiative to resolve the conflict by maximizing pressure on both parties to compromise. That being the case, world federalists ought to accept the reality of this policy default by Bush and turn their attention to the body of world law which has been developed since the Balfour Declaration of 1919, wherein the British Government pledged its honor and good name to develop a nation home in Palestine for the world's Jews. Three years earlier in 1916, however, the British and France had secretly signed an agreement to divide between them the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The colonial and strategic objectives of Britain in the Middle East were to clash formidably with Lord Balfour's pledge: Britain did not take long to conclude that its major interests lay with the Arabs, who were becoming implacably hostile to the notion of a Jewish state on Arab land, albeit one which had been ruled by Ottoman Turks for four centuries.
Thus, the British Colonial Office switched gears in 1920, declining to further any progress towards a national Jewish home in Palestine, while promising to protect the interests and eventually the right of self-determination of the "non-Jewish" (read Arab) Palestinian population.
Fortuitously for Britain (and for France as well), the champion of national self-determination - Woodrow Wilson - fell ill after the Versailles Treaty Conference, while encountering bitter and unrelenting Republican Congressional opposition to the Treaty and the League of Nations Covenant. The "safeguards" insisted upon by Wilson to assure self-determination were thus transformed by practice into mechanisms assuring the expansion of colonial rule by both the British and French in the Middle East and Africa.

The League of Nations and the Mandate "Laws"
Nevertheless, an important body of international law was created in the post-war period, starting with the League of Nations Covenant. Article 22 of the Covenant established the Mandate system, under which the British and French divided most of the colonial territories of the defeated German and Ottoman Empires, ostensibly on a temporary basis, in order to prepare the inhabitants of these territories (e.g. Togo, Cameroun, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula) for self-determination. The majority of the League's Members being of European heritage, it is not surprising that the verbiage inserted in the article is highly patronizing: the Mandate Powers were assigned "the sacred trust of civilization" to advance "the well-being and development of such peoples..."
Explaining why it regarded the assignment of Mandates to European colonial powers as the "best method" for achieving these goals, the Covenant declared that it could entrust only "the advanced nations who by reason of their resources, their experience and their geographical position can best undertake this responsibility on behalf of the League (My italics). Had the United States joined the League and maintained its leadership, then perhaps these Covenant phrases would have appeared less ludicrous and hypocritical than they came to sound. Nevertheless, the Mandate Powers were clearly acting under international law (the Covenant) on behalf of the entire membership of the League of Nations - the world community of the period - and had solemnly accepted the responsibility for leading the peoples of these Mandated territories towards self-determination. (By implication, the League Members and the League itself had accepted responsibility for some degree of oversight to ensure that the Covenant's provisions were being properly implemented by the Mandate Powers. Needless to say, nothing of the sort occurred during the remainder of the League's existence).

Article 22 and the Palestine Mandate
Article 22 of the Covenant specifically observed that "Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandate until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the election of a Mandatory." (Under this provision Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the much of Arabia were eventually granted self- determination.) Because the British had decided to cast their future with the Arabs, they were reluctant to undertake any move which would enhance the possibility of a Jewish national home. Two years after Versailles, the British in 1921 unilaterally subdivided the Palestinian Mandate, assigning eighty percent of the territory - everything east of the Jordan River - to a new separate Arab entity, TransJordan. Neither the Zionists nor the Palestinians, both of whose future would be drastically altered by this move, were consulted. Nor was the League of Nations, which subsequently accepted the division the following year. On July 24, 1922, the Council of the League approved a document which added considerable weight to the body of international law governing the future of Palestine - the Palestine Mandate. In Article 2, the Britain pledge to "be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home... and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion." When the League's Council approved the Palestine Mandate, it in effect pledged the backing of the world community as it then existed to enable the Palestinian people to determine their own future. Without British help over the next two decades, the Zionist movement in the Diaspora undertook to generate resources and volunteers to bolster the Jewish presence in Palestine towards the creation of a homeland. As their numbers grew, they met with increasing violence from Arabs and resistance from the British rulers. Virtually nothing was done on behalf of the Palestinian Arab's political future when World War II intervened in 1939. After that war, Britain announced that it would unilaterally withdraw from the Palestine Mandate in 1948, meanwhile doing everything in its power to assuage the Arab cause while trying to interdict the migration of Jewish Holocaust survivors from Europe to Palestine.

United Nations Partition of Palestine
Three years earlier, in 1945 the victorious nation states met in San Francisco to adopt the Charter of the United Nations Organization. The war had destroyed the League. The colonial powers were exhausted from the struggle. The U.S. and the Soviet Union - the two dominant powers - were both anti-colonial in varying degrees. Thus, the U.N. Charter reiterated the goal of transforming subject peoples into self-determining nation states. Adding to the body of international law, the Charter established the Trusteeship Council, whose responsibility it was to transform the territories formerly under the League's Mandates into self-governing entities. Backed by the Security Council, the Trustee Powers fell under the steady and critical glare of the Trusteeship Council, which ensured the steady progress of every trust Territory towards self-determination, mostly as independent governments. That is, with one major exception - the territory which comprised the League's Palestine Mandate.
Driven by the horrors suffered by the Jews during the Holocaust and perhaps by the guilt of having failed to intervene, the world community as it then existed instructed the U.N. to devise a plan which would establish a Jewish state in part of Palestine and an Arab state in the remainder. The plan proposed by the U.N. (itself a major addition to the body of international law relating to Palestine) assigned 56 percent of what was left of the Mandate to the Jewish state and the remainder to the Arab state. It left the future of East Jerusalem to the dictates of the Trusteeship Council, which was instructed to create an open international city in which both Jews and Arabs, as well as Christians, could live and work side by side. The day after the General Assembly voted on Resolution 181 by a tally of 33 to 13, with ten abstentions, to create the two states, Arab armies from Egypt, Jordan and Syria invaded the new Jewish state. After initial setbacks, the new Jewish armed forces overcame the invading forces and forced their retreat, adding considerable territory and more defensible borders to the State of Israel. After more than a year of war, the U.N. succeeded in arranging a truce between the Arabs and Israel and recognized the new borders resulting from the hostilities. However, at this point Jordan had occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt remained in Gaza and Sinai.

Intractable Issues: Millions of Refugees and the Fate of East Jerusalem
Some 750,000 Arabs fled from their homes or were driven from them during the struggle. They were to multiply three-fold over the next half century, mostly languishing in horrid refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egyptian Gaza. Another segment, today totalling one million Arabs, remained in Israel as citizens, though hardly first class. The final disposition of this issue, which the Arabs regard as at least a partial "right of return" and which the Israelis regard as at most a question of compensation, has been a major obstacle to any final settlement. The question of sharing Jerusalem has been another major obstacle. In August, 2002, Teddy Kollek, the former mayor of Jerusalem, urged Israel to turn over control of East Jerusalem (the Old City) to the Palestinians.
Since the 1949 truce Israel has been subjected to frequent attacks from its Arab neighbours, at times by small infiltrating units or by terrorists, and on at least two occasions by conventional invasions from Arab armies. Following the shattering Arab defeat resulting form the 1967 Six- Day War, Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and Syria's Golan Heights, having been persuaded by the United States to halt its armies one day's march from Cairo, Amman and Damascus and spare the Soviet-supported armies of Egypt and Syria. During the ensuing three decades, the Israeli Government established over two hundred settlements comprising some 400,000 Israeli settlers in these occupied territories. The settlements contravene the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and intrude critically upon any potentially sovereign Arab state. As such, they are also a major obstacle to an agreement.
It was not until 1979 that Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty, after which Israel withdrew its forces from the Sinai in 1982. In 1991, the parties signed a bilateral agreement which ultimately produced the Oslo Agreement, leading to a nascent state, the Palestine Authority. In 1994 Jordan also signed a peace agreement with Israel, settling all of their outstanding disputes. The failure of Barak and Arafat to forge a final settlement in late 2000, under the committed guidance of President Clinton, led to a total breakdown in the talks, followed by the electoral defeat of the Barak Government, which was succeeded by a hard-line prime minister, Ariel Sharon. The Palestinian response was a second intafada, escalated by round after round of violent retaliation by each side.
With the toll of blood so high and the fortunes of both sides in utter shambles, there does not now appear to be a way out of this deadlocked conflict. No important political figure on either side is prepared to lead by breaking the cycle of violence and agree to negotiate terms of compromise which would almost certainly spell the political doom of the negotiators. There is no Pierre Mendes France who would sacrifice his own future for the benefit of his countrymen. That being the case, it may become possible to shift the process to the United Nations, which is the rightful executor of the body of international law that continues to relate to the future of an independent Palestine. In addition to the League of Nations Covenant, the Palestine Mandate, the U.N. Charter and its provisions governing the Trusteeship Council, and General Assembly Resolution 181 which created the Jewish and Arab states, much lip service has been paid to U.N. Resolution 242, which orders Israel to return to an approximation of its borders prior to 1967, to relinquish most of its settlements and to find a way to compensate Arab refugees with proven claims, while instructing the Palestinians to respect the security and integrity of the State of Israel. The "resort" to international law would be a positive act in and of itself, and it would help to build further respect for the establishment of global law, not to mention enhancing the authority of the United Nations. Even American political considerations could be ameliorated by such an act. The resort to international law and assigning the peace process to the United Nations would provide the perfect fig leaf for all those who recognize that the hostilities must be halted and the peace must be crafted, but nevertheless fear the political consequences of such acts. Indeed, "blaming" international law and the U.N. for the end to suicide bombings and the beginnings of peace is not too high a price to pay.
Should the "rule of law" route be pursued, the U.N. Security Council would be within existing international law if it created a Temporary Peacekeeping entity (similar to that which supervised the process in East Timor) or if it revived the Trusteeship Council to direct Palestine's passage to self-government. Either way the U.N. would be required to marshal the experts, technicians, funds, supplies and equipment to transform the Palestinian territories into a stand-alone state. However, all such measures would come to naught unless the Security Council instructs the Israeli armed forces to withdraw from the occupied territories and interposes sufficient military forces between the Israelis and Palestinians to ensure a peaceful transition and to protect the State of Israel from suicide bombers and other terrorist attacks.

Mr President, ladies, gentlemen, honourable members of the Convention, you have heard at length from diverse members of civil society who have expectations of Europe.
Those expectations are many and pressing. For the most part, we share them, but the organisations I represent today are concerned principally with the capacity of the institutions to meet these expectations. Because nothing is more harmful than the repeated declaration of elevated ambitions which are never realised.
If the institutional triangle - Commission, Council, Parliament - has so far been able, in its current configuration, to create the customs union, the single market and finally the monetary union, it is because they worked above all to create common rules, that is to say to carry out legislative and regulatory work. With monetary union and, above all, political union, we need less legislation and more action. So it is the function of the executive that must be reinforced. In other words, Europe needs a government. The citizens have that aspiration, if not that right.

This government cannot be the Council for four simple reasons:
1. To govern one of the largest commercial and financial powers in the world is a full time job, and cannot be carried out in the spare time of people who are already completely absorbed by the management of their own countries.
2. The members of the Council are elected or appointed to defend their national interests and not the European interest. That is why they are always ready to haggle and concede over this or that proposal, something which they demonstrate every day.
3. Being accountable only to their national parliaments, they will never be punished for failing to serve the common interest well. They can never be held to account by the elected representatives of the citizens of Europe. They will be democratically unaccountable.
4. Even though it composed of the strongest figures from their respective countries, the Council is the weakest of the European institutions because it is divided over most issues. A team of strong and vigorous horses pulling in different directions will travel less far than a team of half-starved nags pulling in the same direction.
Because it is legally independent of the national governments and politically accountable to the European Parliament, the Commission should become the government of Europe. But in order to be able to act effectively and decide efficiently, there should be no more Commissioners than there are portfolios, between twelve and a maximum of fifteen. A system of rotation giving each member state an equal right to nominate a Commissioner would maintain the principle of the equality of states. The interests of the small states would be better defended by a strong and independent Commission, guardian of the general interest, than by a Commissioner swamped by a vast Commission downgraded to the level of a second Coreper.
The legitimacy of this executive would be strengthened still further by the election of its president by the European Parliament acting, in the introductory period at least, as an electoral college. Perhaps in the future one might envisage the introduction of a direct election.
It would be suitable that the legislative function should be carried out on the basis of co-decision between the Parliament and the Council, which itself should always vote by double majority (a majority of states representing a majority of the citizens).
We would support the Lamassoure report regarding the division of competences, and the proposals of the Commission regarding foreign policy.
For the simplification and the transparency of the system, it would be wise to bring together the three pillars into one, with the single exception for defence matters where the intergovernmental method and flexibility should remain for the time being.
Since its foundation in 1957, the EEC has had a legal personality at the international level. It is an aberration that the Union, which was supposed to take European integration a step further, is deprived of one. This means it is unable to act properly in the fields covered by the second and third pillars in its dealing with third countries.
Finally, we should review the procedure for amending the constitutional treaty. In a real democracy, it is unthinkable, indeed insupportable, that the will of the representatives of three hundred or even four hundred million people can be obstructed by a country with no more than three hundred thousand inhabitants.
Must the results of the Convention be put to a European referendum, even though some member states do not permit this? The organisations I represent are divided on this question, but all agree that Europe must be built not only by consultation but also by involving citizens and representatives of civil society in the formulation of European principles and decisions.

This speech was given at a plenary session of the European constitutional Convention on 24 June 2002. The author was representing the Federalist Voice network of federalist and pro-European organisations lobbying the Convention.

Science is definite on this point: our planet has been in existence for 4.5 billion years and the sun will ensure the continuance of organic life for another two billion years or so. Seen from our planet, the only one to be inhabited to this day, as far as we know, it signifies, humanly speaking, the infinite in every direction, the infinite in time as well as in space; just to think of it makes one giddy.
Only one of the species on our planet can consciously live a part of these billions of years. 70, 80, 90 years if all goes well. During their short lease of life these creatures can ask countless questions; they can even ponder over their ability to ask questions. These earthly beings share another trait which unites them and distinguishes them from the other species: their great capacity to suffer. They can suffer acutely and for a lot of time; this is due to their great capacity to know and to their limited capacity to forget.
Unlike the other living species human beings know what suffering is inexorably in wait for them and the suffering they are subjected to may mark them forever. Just think of the pair of parents who have lost an infant and cannot forget. The capacity to suffer is limitless and the capacity to forget is limited. It is the tragic aspect of the state of man.
Due to his great vulnerability men deserve sympathy and compassion. Their condition should induce them, during their short stay on earth to adopt an attitude of forbearance, generosity and kindness. Unfortunately nothing of the sort happens. Many human beings are neither generous nor accommodating. Instead of being conciliatory they demand "the right of self-determination".
If this right is claimed by individuals who want to determine by themselves what is right or wrong they will end up rapidly in a specialized institution for deranged or delinquent persons. Self-determination was, according to professor B.V.A. Roeling, the very essence of criminality which he defined as "the sovereignty of the ego and the instant". "When the demand for self-determination does not proceed from individuals or small gangs but from human communities led by cultural or political leaders, it appears in a different way. The demand becomes a respectable claim and the right to self-determination often becomes a sacred right".
Why is it so? This deserves a debate. What is certain is that the right to self-determination of peoples and nations is the most peremptory cause of wars, hot or cold, of the greatest slaughters, of the greatest injustices and exploitations. On this subject you may read The Anatomy of Peace by Emery Reves (1945).
Behind the notion of "self-determination" collective selfishness is often lurking. One does not say "My Country First" because this is not politically correct but one is in favour of self-determination to be able to think first and foremost about the interests of one's people - which boils down to the same thing. This sacred right which is undeniably the main cause of the sufferings of whole populations is not being called into question by the powerful because they are not ready to undermine the very basis of their national power.
One is struck by the following contradiction: on one hand the unity of mankind should entail a great solidarity; indeed all human beings are the same, not only in their attitude for suffering but also in other fields; all children will play together without problems, all men can with all women give life to healthy children. But on the other hand, the rulers always manage to break the links of solidarity and segregate the population of the Earth according to elements of secondary importance: rivers, coastlines, chains of mountains, differences in languages (they all say the same things with different words), religions (they pray in different fashions), history, habits, standards of living... So as to acquire or keep their power, trifling differences are blown up out of all proportion. They are insisted on as irritating, dramatized, rendered threatening; they are finally translated into lofty criteria of supreme solidarity to create and support nation-states and finally involved as causes to break existing links of solidarity to proclaim and demand the right to "self-determination".
As the Earth becomes smaller and smaller more human groups demand self-determination, urged by potentates or would-be tyrants. Self-determination is desired and advocated to escape from the rules, to acquire weapons, to curtail or suppress human rights, to wage cold wars or as it is the case here [in Belgium] to decide independently and to their selfish advantage on taxes, social security, health policy, foreign trade, the sales of weaponry, advertising for tobacco, traffic and the environment.
At the same time, to reassure the good people, they insist that they want to maintain their solidarity with the other communities - this means, of course, that they keep their right to self-determination which will allow them to decide when and under what conditions and in what measure they wish to preserve the said solidarity. This evolution is considered as normal by many people - according to them it is going "in the sense of history". Nevertheless the question is to know what will happen when the 5 or 6,000 linguistic communities in the world express the same claims as the Flemish or Wallon leaders.

Last summer, in a unique and innovative exercise of democracy, 210 young citizens met in Brussels to make their voices heard and to contribute towards the building of Europe. We came from a vast range of backgrounds: From Ireland in the west to Turkey in the East; from Spanish communists to far-right xenophobic Danes, from pupil and student organisations, trade unions and scouts; from organisations of the disabled to those of ethnic minorities, to name a few.
We were faced with a difficult task: Under an extreme time-constraint, to overcome our differences and produce a strong statement, an answer to the question, "what do young people want for the Europe of tomorrow?" It had to be strong and concrete enough to make an impression on the senior Convention and the general public, and rich enough to reflect the diversity and breadth of the Youth Convention.
Obviously we would disagree on many points. Some wanted the Tobin tax and a fight against global capitalism, others wanted to ban abortion and pre-marital sex. Some wanted Europe to be a security and defence superpower, others wanted a European welfare state. Despite these differences we were united by one thing: a demand for democracy. Regardless of political colour, regardless of whether you usually fight for the environment or for rights of the disabled, we all saw that our work can only bear fruit if there are democratic institutions, where we can support the politicians we like and work to throw out those who disappoint us. A democratic Europe, a federal Europe, was therefore a basic structure we could agree on, and the citizens can later work to put in it what they choose, be it a welfare state model, be it a beacon for free trade in the world or for global environmentalism.
A minute minority among the delegates had the (in my view outdated) position that democracy can only exist within the borders of the nation state, and that the democratic process is reserved for ethnically homogenous groups within the "vaterland" (sic). These forces constituted a very small part of the Youth Convention, and could not, even with the concerted support of the Danish MEP Jens Peter Bonde's party machinery, disrupt the proceedings or control the final text.
Instead, the Youth Convention produced a strong result, demanding a European Federal Constitution. We want a European Government, accountable to the Parliament, consisting of a Chamber of the Citizens (EP) and a Chamber of the States (Council). Their powers and their relation to each other and to the national level must be clearly defined in the Constitution on the basis of subsidiarity, transparency and accountability.
We would not have reached such a strong and coherent result, without the sacrifice and tremendous work done by the chair, Giacomo Filibeck, the Presidium, and the three rapporteurs. We must also acknowledge the work done by the European Youth Forum in preparing and organising the event. Finally, we as Jeffers should recognize that the impact we made on the proceedings and the final text is to a large extent a result of long term networking and contact-building, in addition to the effort put down by JEF and allies during the Youth Convention.
We can be proud of our result, but the fight for the Europe we want is far from over. We must keep telling the senior Convention that we, the young people of Europe, are watching them and that the only way forward is to build a federal democratic and united Europe. Until we meet again to remind the senior Convention of our demands, good luck.

Juergen Rose and Johannes Ch. Traut (Eds.)
Federalism and Decentralization. Perspectives for the Transformation Process in Eastern and Central Europe
George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, LIT Verlag, 2001

In most countries, the level of autonomy and self-government that the local communities at city and regional level have come to enjoy is an index of the level of democracy that the country has reached in general, including in such areas as minority rights, economic initiatives for development, etc. There are exceptions to this rule, like France and England, where a strong unitary tradition is accompanied by an ethnic, religious, cultural homogeneity and by the presence of a political and administrative class with a long, deep-seated democratic culture and good managerial skills. But in most places in the world the conditions are not as fortunate: many nations are ruled (or have been ruled until recently) by centralized governments which often have bred a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy; ethnic minority groups do not have their rights adequately recognized (or only lip-service is paid to them), causing tensions and conflicts; and economic development has almost no chance to take off.
Federalism in its various forms has often been proposed (and sometimes applied, more or less successfully) as an institutional cure in many cases where conflicts among different groups within a nation's boundaries are present, or in other instances as a political new formation uniting two or more nations into a wider and more advantageous polity, fostering economic development, security and democratic life. But are there some fundamental conditions to be fulfilled before federalism can be contemplated as a viable political choice? And what lessons can be learned by the practice of federalism in some Western countries?
These are the questions that the sponsor and the editors of this book have tried to answer in connection with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe which a decade ago came out of the Communist autocratic one-party system and are now looking for new economic and political models, most of them with the more or less distant perspective of joining the European Union. The book is a survey of 8 Central and Eastern European countries, and 8 Western countries, of which 6 have federal governments; it focuses on their history and their institutional arrangements and procedures in dealing with the regional or constitutive entities of their territories. Albeit the editors tried to set forth from the start some guidelines to the authors for having articles on the various countries as uniform as possible, in actual fact they are not, and it would have been an almost impossible task, as the reader will realize in grasping the enormous disparity of century-long histories, forms of government, composition of the population, educational and political levels reached, etc. However there are articles of great interest, including the ones of the editors, which give general overviews and draw some conclusions.
The examination of the systems of the Western federal or regionalized countries, intended to be an example of functioning democracies, takes almost half of the book, and constitutes a clever analysis of several systems condensed in one book, which can come handy to anybody interested in the subject. Harry N. Scheiber writes on the evolution of the US federal system, starting from the few "enumerated powers" originally attributed in the Constitution to the federal government, and taking us through the constant devolution of more and more competencies from the states to it as, one would say, a matter of necessity by history, notably after the Civil War with the 14th Amendment, then during the Progressive Era (1900-1920) with regard to the industrial and economic relations, to the New Deal with the assumption of a central role in almost every field by the central government to rescue the country after the Great Depression, to the recent years when fundamental decisions have been taken with regard to civil rights, environment protection, welfare, etc. One remark the author makes is particularly worth mentioning, i.e. how such a significant change could occur without the need of many formal constitutional amendments, but "through the ordinary process of law-making, together with a shift in the Supreme Court's doctrinal position on key elements of the original document".
Martin Grosse Hüttmann, in The practice of federalism in Germany, describes the apparently complicated system of co-decision involving the Länder, constituting a "cooperative federalism" in which the regions play a very important role and are also incredibly active. Every Land sends representatives to Bonn and Berlin to sit in literally hundreds of committees and lobbying groups, and to Brussels and Strasbourg to similarly protect their interests at European level. Although there is in the country some criticism at this huge bureaucratic apparatus, which may prove too slow for the pace of today's affairs, and, perhaps more painfully, at the domestic wealth redistribution system to the poorer Länder of former East Germany, the German federalism remains one of the best functioning examples of decentralized government. As to the diffuse presence of the Länder in institutions, one could comment that no doubt the best way to get what is deemed fair is to actively pursue and spend money on it, wherever decisions are taken that can affect you.
About Belgium, which only in 1993 became a federal state, the author is rather critical of the present situation of weakness of the central government vis à vis the constitutive three regions and three communities. This is actually the almost unique and interesting feature of this federalism: the presence of non-territorial, linguistic communities (Flemish, French and German) as components of the state, with right to autonomous governments and parliaments. This is something that in the second part of the book, dealing with the Central and Eastern European countries, where different ethnic and religious communities live mixed together over vast territories, is suggested as a possible solution for recognizing special rights to individuals of minority groups without having to create for them a territorial unit cut out in the nation's land. Time will tell if the Belgian case will prove successful; at the moment the situation in the country does not look very promising.
Other significant federal systems are presented (Canada, Switzerland, Austria), each with its own peculiarities, demonstrating that, as D. Elazar says, federalism is a genus with countless species, and each country has to find the one best suited for its needs, culture, historical background.
Of the non-federal Western countries, the United Kingdom is generally known as an example of unitary state, with little decentralized power except for the two significant cases of Scotland and Wales. (Northern Ireland, because of the well-known troubles, is now undergoing a very unusual process of re-centralization, wanted by the Protestant majority.) However, Scotland in particular, the author L. J. Sharpe notes, enjoys very special privileges, like a Scottish Parliament (1999), its own legal and education system, its own national Church, its own banknotes, its own national flag, its own national sport teams, and a greater share of seats in the British Parliament: much more than many states have in federal systems, leading the author to write that "the UK is in a sense more socially federal than most federal states". At government level, he illustrates the regional feature of the British system, i.e. the three Offices for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, whose respective Heads are Secretary of State and members of the Cabinet. A novelty that could have some impact on the UK's present decentralization policy is represented by the emergence of new big metropolitan areas and their leaders, as recently witnessed by the creation of a local government for Greater London and the election of a pre-eminent figure as its Mayor.
The second half of the book deals with the Central and Eastern European countries (360 million people, 48 states and nationalities), all of which were part of the Communist bloc; after its collapse they have fared on very different paths in modernizing their political structure and in dealing with their internal regions and minorities. The book's editor, Johannes Ch. Traut, conveniently defines three types of countries and regions, that are emerging from the first stages of basic transformation:
a) countries that sooner or later will join the EU
b) "independent" states, which are developing in an autonomous fashion, outside of the influence of the EU
c) regions which are in a latent state of war.
Poland and Hungary are examples of the first group. Poland (39 million people) is well advanced in the setting up of a decentralized administrative structure in its 16 Voivodships, and in the democratization of political life down to the local communities. Hungary (10 million people) is not so far ahead, still debating on what powers to devolve at lower level, and to which level (the historical twenty Counties seem too small to satisfy the criteria of the EU's regions for economic planning and control (the NUTS 2 level), and there is no tradition in the country of other regional groupings). But all nations in the group are progressing in the decentralization of the formerly centralized functions, which also brings with it an effective democratization of the political life. As to the perspectives of federalism in this type of countries, Ivàn Illés, in his notable article on "Federalism in Central and Eastern Europe", briefly illustrates the federalist thrusts and ideas in the course of the (little known) history of the area, from the times of the great empires (the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg monarchy and the Russian Empire), to the present day (with the failures of federalism in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR; but with the renewed presence of federal structures in Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Bosnia-Herzegovina, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and the Russian Federation). He stresses that practically all of the present states have regained their independence about a decade ago, and concludes: "These relatively new and historically unstable borders confer an eminently sensitive character to the issue of national integrity. Consequently, the viability of federal structures both among and within the states of Central and Eastern Europe seems rather improbable in the immediate future. This does not mean, however, that regional self-government with its corresponding competences should not and could not be promoted as an immediate objective".
The second group of "independent states" is naturally centered on Russia. Russia (146 million people) will most certainly try not so much to reconstruct the former USSR, but to exercise "leadership instead of control, economic dominance instead of political responsibility" (from the article by U. Arnswald). "Prospects are good for the formation of a confederation consisting of the former Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia; ... only under certain circumstances will Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Moldova participate". Anyway it seems inevitable that Russia will again be the center of an integration region different from the EU, confirming Pierre Moscovici's, former French Minister of European Affairs, conviction that the real frontier of the EU is with Russia.
The most dramatic situation is offered by the countries in a latent state of war, as in the Balkans and the Caucasus. Here is where ethnic tensions, however covered up in institutional arrangements, nationalistic but also federal, are not resolved, and can blow up in bloody wars. An interesting article, if somewhat involved, by Ilija G. Vujacic, The challenges of ethnic federalism: experiences and lessons of the former Yugoslavia, examines the causes of the failure of federalism in that country. It was, as customary in the Soviet bloc, merely an instrument for manipulating the relations among ethnic groups, but it was lacking the two basic requisites for all modern federations: a political will to develop a truly federal association, and a constitutional debate. It was based on Communism and Nation, meaning that the six ethnic republics were all ruled directly by the centralized Communist Party (which "fundamentally impaired the essential legal characteristic of federalism"), and in them was the recognition of their being "nations", that is linguistic, religious or ethnic groups (so they were "the primary holders of sovereign rights"). When the integrative power of the strong Communist Party disappeared, this ethnic federalism was applied to the extreme by the political classes that were brought to power in the republics, prevailing also over the scarce powers of the federal state, and bringing about "the focusing of attention on their own territory, the resurgence of ethnic intolerance and the obstruction of the equality of civil rights at the federal level". ... "Ethnic federalism seems to be a good solution only if it is applied moderately, ... in an atmosphere of democratic political culture, mutual tolerance, and the sincere wish to live together in peace with other ethnic groups".
The sad and realistic conclusion that the author draws is that "in this part of the world the creation of a specific culture of federal relations ... will be a slow, painstaking, long-term and never sufficiently secured process".
And this is one answer to the question about the conditions for federalism, a mature democratic political culture. From the great number of country cases presented, the reader could derive other answers, like the disposition to provide the federal government with sufficient powers to defend the general interest against that of one of the constituent entities.
The book offers a wealth of informations and analyses by academics from and on many and very different nations; although the reading is not properly easy, it can be a good reference for getting insight on the institutional systems and the current transformation processes of both Western and Center-Eastern European countries.

Bruno Boissière is Secretary-General of the Union of European Federalists

Based on certain values, should the European Union be open to all countries wanting to join, regardless of geographical or cultural conditions?

The Union - and, certainly, a political union of the peoples and States of Europe - should be founded on common values. While this is a necessary condition, it is not enough. For me, Europe - politically - begins and ends where the sense of joint purpose begins and ends. In other words, a United Europe cannot be based on decree; either its peoples desire it or they do not. No one doubts that on the geographical and cultural levels all the candidate countries now negotiating with the Union are already European. To tell the truth, it is a question of re-unifying Europe. Beyond that, it is perfectly foreseeable and acceptable that a European federation, made attractive by its own success, could one day be joined by other States which, while outside Europe's strict geographical limits, could take part in its political development and join in defending its common values, the unity and diversity of its culture, and even its territory.

Would the desire to impose geographical limits to the Union give support to those suspicious of the process of integration as leading to a European 'super-state' founded on the model of the nation states?

In fact, the error to be avoided is that of seeking to reproduce on a larger, even a continental, scale the nation-state, today overtaken both from below (the regions) and from above (the building of Europe). The political Europe of the future should not be a unitary and centralised state with an immutable territorial area. Federalism seeks to unify, from bottom to top, the different entities, while respecting their diversity. This is not an end in itself; rather it is a method or state of mind. In this way, the geographical limits of a Europe progressing towards union have evolved in line with the enlargements from six to nine, twelve and fifteen. It is not for geographical and cultural reasons, for example, that Switzerland, Sweden or the countries of eastern Europe are not yet members of the Union. As has been happening progressively within the area corresponding to today's Union, the time will come to question the validity of frontiers, these 'scars of history' and to consider them as links rather than as barriers.

Does the Union prefigure an ideal for the United Nations as organisation?

The Union such as it is today does not represent an ideal model for the future organisation of the United Nations. At best it amounts to an experience, a contribution on the road to world unity. "Example is not the best way of influencing others, it is the only way", wrote Albert Schweitzer. This is what Europe is in the process of demonstrating to other regions of the planet and to the world as a whole. At its first congress at Montreux in 1947, the UEF chose, moreover, as a statutory objective, "to work for the creation of a European federation, a constituent element of the world confederation". In other words, to promote a federal Europe in and for a united world.

Should the specific nature of the Union lead to its member states being grouped in the United Nations under the Union's flag?

The European Union of today can, indeed, be described as an 'unidentifiable international object', neither international organisation nor federal state, but rather some sort of intermediate or hybrid body the two. It follows that the question of its representation in the United Nations does not arise as a matter of urgency. Certainly any progress in the constitutional process, notably as regards the legal personality of the Union, could bring this question onto the agenda. Should the Union be transformed into a real European federation, then its accreditation as a single entity to the United Nations would come to the fore, but on different terms from those of today. Indeed, the present global challenges could oblige the UN to carry out a fundamental reform of its organs in the direction of a democratisation of its structure and doubtless of a regionalization of the representations of its members, and of an improvement of its efficiency.