The European Federalist Party (abbreviated as PFE in French, EFP in English) is a

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

an political party founded on 6 November 2011 in

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. The EFP is one of the first European-oriented political parties that openly defends

European federalism The United States of Europe (USE), the European State, the European Federation and Federal Europe, is the hypothetical scenario of the European integration leading to formation of a sovereign superstate (similar to the United States of Americ ...

and is not a coalition of pre-existing national parties. The European Federalist Party is made up of members from 12 European countries, from civil society, who face their professional life and political commitment.

History

EFP is the result of the reunification of Europe United, which was founded in 2005 and had a presence in several countries of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

, and the French Parti fédéraliste. In 2016, the office was composed of President Pietro De Matteis, Vice President Geogios Kostakos, Secretary General Emmanuel Rodary, Treasurer Mariarosaria Marziali, John Retetagos, Marco Marazzi and Michel Caillouet. Following the general assembly of 6 December 2016, the office of the European Federalist Party merged with the citizen movements Stand-up for the United States of Europe and USE Now to create Stand Up For Europe. On the other hand, the French national association composing the EFP decided to continue its political action as European Federalist Party.

Political project

The goal of the European Federalist Party is to create a

European Federation The United States of Europe (USE), the European State, the European Federation and Federal Europe, is the hypothetical scenario of the European integration leading to formation of a sovereign superstate (similar to the United States of Amer ...

of voluntary member states of the European Union. It aims to present candidates at all elections across Europe. He was initially supported by prominent European personalities, such as

Marco Pannella Marco Pannella (born Giacinto Pannella; 2 May 1930 – 19 May 2016) was an Italian politician, journalist and activist. He was well known in his country for his nonviolence and civil rights' campaigns, like the right to divorce, the right to ab ...

(former MEP, deputy, Italian senator and collaborator of

Altiero Spinelli Altiero Spinelli (31 August 1907 – 23 May 1986) was an Italian politician, political theorist and European federalist, referred to as one of the founding fathers of the European Union. A communist and militant anti-fascist in his youth, he spe ...

), who was one of the founding members. The members of the PFE campaign for the creation of a supranational European State with limited sovereign powers and political institutions: government, assembly, federal Senate representing the Member States.

Main proposals

As the name suggests, the party's goal is to make the European Union a true

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. This project can be possibly carried out starting with a nucleus of volunteer countries members of the Euro area. That implies: *Establish a federal Constitution in place of the many current treaties; *Elect a federal president by direct

universal suffrage Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stan ...

to represent the federation internationally. It will be the guarantor of its constitution, and would exercise the powers of the European Council; *Make the

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a true federal government; *Strengthen the powers of the

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: the vote must be regionalised in order to bring the Members of the European Parliament (MEP) closer to their constituents, while the

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must be replaced by a real "European Senate" (upper house), with a view to a

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; *Deepen the

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into a real Supreme Court; *Strengthen the powers of the

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in order to allow it to deal with financial crises; *Create a European Headquarters responsible for the European Common Army; *Deepen European citizenship to make it a true nationality, independently from the national citizenship; *Define a common European foreign and diplomatic policy to better defend European interests vis-à-vis other major powers (notably the United States of America and China); *Create a European budget to finance major projects and create jobs throughout Europe; *Establish European independent control authorities in the areas of environment, health security and bioethics; *Countries wishing to join the Federal Union will have to adopt the European Constitution to maintain a certain coherence in its functioning. This does not exclude the possibility of cooperation agreements with privileged partners.

The EFP and the European Union

The EFP argues that most of the ills in the European Union today come from the past and from the shortcomings of an institutional scheme that was completed by the crisis. The European Federalist Party propose to go beyond the current Union, which according to that party is "bureaucratic and un-democratic". Thus the federal Europe desired by the EFP is different from the current European Union, which is see as not strong enough to defend European interests, and too far from the concerns of citizens.

Political strategy

The European Federalist Party, like the federalist model, leaves a great deal of autonomy to its national sections, which have a certain freedom of adaptation of the European program to the local culture. On the other hand, the European program whose primary goal is to build a European federation is common. The EFP thus seeks to differentiate itself from the current official formations of the European Parliament by proposing a real cohesion on the European level. The announced goal is to create a mass popular movement around the party and the idea of a federal Europe to respond to the current crisis. The European Federalist Party has participated in numerous elections, including the French presidential election and the European elections.

References