Citizen’s Initiative for the Europe of the Citizens
From where we come and where we want
Europe of Free Citizens –
The Vision without Limits
More then 10 years ago the “Citizen’s Initiative for the Europe of the Citizens” (Bürgerinitiative für das Europa der Bürger), in Munich, Germany, began to work in a Constitution for Europe as an “alternative to the Maastricht Europe”. From this work the vision of the “Europe of Free Citizens” was derived.
On 17th November 2002, at the “European Referendum Campaign’s” international conference, in Bratislava, Slovakia the citizen’s initiative presented the vision of a “Europe of Free Citizens” for the first time.
This presentation of the vision of the “Europe of Free Citizens” consisted of two parts.
The first part was a collection of state philosophial and democratic principles, very simply presented, and put into systematical form to serve as background and foundation for a European Constitution. The roots of these ideas go as far back as Plato but were all presented in modern language and modern concepts.
The 2nd part of this presentation contains the outline of a European Constitution and is derived from the first part. It explains which institutions will be needed for a functioning European State. This is drafted in such a way as to be capable to serve us far into the 2nd half of this century.
The European Constitution and the future European State are defined from the bottom up and not from the state down. That means the citizens are at the center of the state and all the power comes from the citizens. The Basic Rights are the core from which the state and its constitution are built.
The vision of this future European State has the form of a confederation. Ist objective is to improve the quality of life for all its citizens so that everyone can benefit equally.
This means that this state will not support the concept that our lives should be determined so much by the economic factors. There are many other qualities to life and these need to be developed as well.
The reason for creating this vision was the conclusion that our current system has reached its final stage in many ways. Therefore we need a completely new start and a completely new system and organisation of our lives, to be implemented gradually with a long term view.
And we need to start soon because we may be running out of time quicker than we realise.
Basic Rights and Basic Duties of the Citizen
Personal / Political
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Currently
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The Vision |
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Basic Rights strongly formalised and restricted by many exceptions.
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New Basic Rights: for animals, plants and the planetary environment. The Right to natural birth, natural living and to die a natural death.
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The Basic Rights are stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the UN – but are often infringed on and some have not been realised yet
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Graduation of Basic Rights: recognize, respect, guarantee, protect, ensure. Raise each Basic Right to the highest level available.
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Reduction of the personal Basic Rights in favour of the state.
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Barrier clause regarding personal Basic Rights.
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Contributions in the form of taxes, military service and alternative service.
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Community work, for example infor- mation of citizens or political education. Charity work. Accounts of working hours, tax credits for charitable work.
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The Transparent Citizen.
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Full freedom of information. Transparent state. Inspection of government records by the citizen.
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Acceptance and respect for the powers of the state.
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Loyalty to the state.
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Basic education.
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The duties to basic political education, to social work (except when too handicapped).
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Legitimation of the ruling class by the participation in elections
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Right to direct participation in the political process on all levels. (Referendum).
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Citizens abiding to the law.
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Political Basic Rights: Right to the pursuit of the objective of the state. Individual or joint legal action should be possible.
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The right to resign from the citizenship.
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Principles of the Constitution
Three principles as the greatest common denominator:
• The principle of the rule of law and of the constitution
• The separation of power
• The principle of democracy
LES* Principles of Order
• Decentralised Approach
• Economy (saving, no waste)
LES* Principles of Decision Making
• Referendum
• Comitee Vote
• Elections
• FOCJ (= Functional Overlapping Competitive Jurisdictions,
Prof. Frey, St. Gallen, Swiss)
* LES = League of European States, the working title for our vision