Why a political declaration?

Love Parade. COP. Political summits: events usually carry a message or declaration to be relevant.

European General Assemblies are our main events. We come from all corners of Europe. But we leave without making any political message or declaration.

We cannot demand a political Europe, if our own European events are not political.

Let's change this.

By proposing a political declaration to close our GA in Bratislava. Ambitious. Bold. To raise eyebrows. And to give a new hope to unite Europe.

I will ask chapters to fine-tune and hopefully endorse the following declaration, because I believe we can develop leverage as Volt Europa by showing that we can speak with one voice.

As members we have the last word on this declaration by debating and approving it.

The Bratislava declaration

Volt will build the platform for European leadership and calls on member states to initiate treaty changes.

The last months have shown us that in a world changing for the worse, we, as European citizens, can only prevail if we change Europe for the better.

Whether a European army or a United Europe, citizens across the continent understand the urgency and what is at stake. So does Volt: We are running out of time.

Volt Europa was born with the goal to “Fix Europe”. We believe in a federal Europe and we are calling on national governments to also make a leap of faith: changing treaties was never easy, but it was possible until the 2007 Lisbon treaty. We see today that 20 years without reform is a recipe for disaster.

Only 1 government is needed to propose treaty changes in the European Council. 14 can initiate the process. We don’t have 27 Orbáns. We don’t have 14 Orbáns. We actually have no more Orbán. So what is stopping us?

If national leadership continues to only talk about a more united and more integrated Europe without taking the next logical steps, the only solution is to build and vote for real European political leadership. This is what Volt will do.

The next European elections are in 2029. Volt demands to open EU treaties until then. We cannot wait. And Volt will not wait:

  1. We will seek dialogue with heads of state to argue for initiating treaty changes to give the Parliament legal initiative and move to qualified majority voting.
  2. We will build momentum in the population to use the next European elections to change course towards a federal Europe.
  3. We will build the platform for future European leaders - on European and national level to provide an alternative and European perspective to electors.

Volt Europa will be ready to take responsibility in three years.

We demand national governments to take responsibility now.

Motion

I propose the following motion to be debated and voted on at the upcoming Volt Europa General Assembly in Bratislava:

Do you approve concluding the Volt Europa General Assembly in Bratislava with the proposed political declaration ?

Endorse the Motion

Filing a motion requires 1% of effective members to endorse it. If you are a Volt member and want to support adding this topic on the Bratislava General Assembly Agenda, please fill out this endorsement form (@volteuropa email required - if you do not have one, please send me a message).

Thank you for contributing to our movement staying true to its bottom up roots.