Peace Project

We citizens across Europe use the crises in the EU - incl. Corona and climate change - as chances to strengthen democracy, peace, freedom, security and welfare in Europe and in the world! - Together, bottom-up, with referendа:

1. The Brexit experience shall lead to a first pan-European referendum in which we citizens will determine our country's role in our new Europe: politically integrated or freely associated. This will be the first step towards a peaceful and prospering cooperation among all European peoples and countries.
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2. The refugee crisis will be mastered with a successful, humanitarian, flexible common European refugee policy - by means of a new refugee union of like-minded European countries, reinforced by voluntary agreements with other European countries and with countries of origin and transit of the refugees.
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3. The euro crisis will be overcome on a sustainable basis by the creation of a close economic, monetary and fiscal union (EMU) for countries willing to politically integrate themselves. All other European countries are invited to join the European free trade area or the common market / economic area (EEA; free movement of goods, services and capital, but without free movement of people and without the euro). - The resulting strong economic cooperation and free trade in Europe will bring prosperity and stability to the entire continent.
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4. After Corona, we citizens in every country are calling for the immediate careful preparation and planning of flexible, efficient emergency programs and laws, adapted to local and national circumstances and approved by us citizens in referenda, and for the creation of a well trained, experienced emergency organization that can be mobilized any time at short notice - as well as for an unbureaucratic cooperation at the European level and an efficient, independent global monitoring and alarm system at the UN / WHO to fight future pandemics.
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5. In our new Europe, we citizens shall create a global democratic citizens' alliance for the climate and commit ourselves at all political levels (municipality, region, nation and UN) for an efficient, subsidiary, global democratic "Citizens' Climate Alliance" that will have a maximum worldwide climate impact! - bottom-up! 
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6. Each country can participate at the common European foreign, security and defense policy by deciding in the first pan-European referendum to join our politically integrated core Europe (Art. 8 and 9 of the draft constitution).
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7. The https://www.our-new-europe.de/limesurvey/index.php/survey/index/sid/979429/newtest/Y/lang/en will be resolved peacefully and democratically, with the citizens of Ukraine, Crimea and Belarus deciding on their country's future in referenda controlled by UN and/or OSCE observers. This could trigger a wave of democratization across Eastern Europe.
   
   
   

Our new, diverse, democratic Europe has to be created democratically, bottom-up - with us citizens. It has to be based on a new Constitution. This Constitution will be drafted and adopted by a Constitutional Council, elected by the citizens in all participating countries, who will then ratify it and put it into force in a referendum.

The new Constitution defines the concept of direct democracy for our new Europe (ONE) with a variable geometry, including: A politically integrated European economic, fiscal and monetary union (EEU); a European common market / new economic area (EEA); a vast free-trade union, open to all European countries; an effective, efficient and humanitarian European refugee union; and a common European foreign, security and defence policy of the willing countries.

Decisive for this democratic, diverse Europe are constitutionally defined common values and objectives, the rights and duties of its citizens (fundamental and civil rights, especially referenda and popular initiatives), as well as the principles of the separation of powers, subsidiarity and federalism (according to the definition of a decentralized country, a confederation). In this regard, the draft at hand relies especially on the Swiss Constitution. Compared to to-day’s Switzerland, our new Europe however will be:

• More diverse: It includes many more cultures and languages than Switzerland, and the Swiss cantons are today less autonomous than the countries of the (new) EEA / common market and of the free trade zone.
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• Less directly democratic: Member countries of our new Europe can keep their very different national political structures and institutions, in particular parliamentary democracy (even the countries in the politically integrated core Europe). However, if their citizens so request, they also can create the conditions for important national issues to be decided in referenda.
  
  

In comparison with today's EU, our new Europe is:

• Larger: All countries between Vladivostok and Reykjavik are invited to participate in the new Europe according to their citizens’ decision;
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• More democratic: In our new Europe, there will be regular, constitutionally defined plebiscites, in particular the constitutional initiative and the legislative referendum, as well as democratic elections of the CES parliament, government and court of justice;
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• More diverse, less centralized: Apart from the integrated core Europe, member countries keep their political, economic, social and cultural independence. They can nonetheless participate - by means of bilateral agreements – at common projects, programs and tasks (e.g. in the fields of refugees, research, education, transport and communication);
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• More subsidiary: In our new Europe, no task shall be transferred to "Brussels", that member countries can themselves deal with as well or even better. The citizens decide, which competences they want to delegate and centralize. 
  
  

There is no true democracy without mutual trust between the state and its citizens - and there is no better way to create and reinforce such a trust than referenda - since:

Nothing strengthens democracy, peace and freedom and the commitment of us citizens to Europe, our sense of belonging together and our democratic responsibility for our new Europe, as well as our certainty to be taken seriously by this Europe, like regular constitutionally determined referenda, in which we citizens throughout Europe can decide freely (after open, fair, instructive, often fierce, yet always respectful campaigns) on all essential European issues! - Switzerland is proving this every quarter!

On the other hand, nothing frustrates, offends and hurts us citizens more than politicians who ignore, disregard, reject, launch - or misuse referenda for their own purposes and careers, or even repeat them, until the results suit them! - Unfortunately, this happens time and again - not only in the EU!

All attempts of "Brussels" and of its politicians to impose their increasingly powerful and centralized Europe top-down, without consultig us citizens in referenda (e.g. on the European Constitution 2003), or even against the citizens' decisions in national referenda (e.g. France and the Netherlands; against the Constitution 2005), are doomed to failure because of Europe's immense cultural, political and historic diversity and the resistance of us, empowered citizens and convinced Europeans!

We citizens must empower ourselves and assume our resposibility for our new Europe by giving each and every one of us a voice, so that we can implement it, by means of referenda, bottom-up: We'll have the last word on all main issues (e.g. constitution, crises, new members); and we'll effectively control our politicians and authorities and, if necessary, sanction them - with the ballot sheet! 

1. All EU advocates who want to avoid the Union's paralysis or collapse and to strengthen Europe as a community of values in all areas - by deciding their own country's participation in the politically integrated core of our new Europe;
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2. All EU opponents, who want their own country to take advantage, too, from the diverse, successful and beneficial economic cooperation in our new Europe, especially in its free trade area or in its new common market;
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3. All the citizens frustrated by "Brussels", who, feeling for the first time to be taken seriously by our new, democratic, diverse Europem, begin trusting and standing up for it;
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4. All the EU citizens who want to have the final say on European (and may be more often also national) issues and crises by means of referenda and who want to vote more than once every five years only (in "European elections")!
   
   
5. All  Europeans outside the EU who want to participate, too, at the creation of a new, sustainable and prospering Europe!
   
   

We millions of responsible citizens shall implement our European peace project democratically, by means of referenda - bottom-up: 

1. A flexible and prospering Europe that uses its crises as a chance for a successful, vital and diverse cooperation that brings wealth and benefits to all European countries and peoples! 
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2. A subsidiary, decentralized, diverse Europe with and for us citizens, in which our European identity and values are firmly anchored in the immense wealth of our cultures, languages and traditions!
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3. A strong, stable and sustainable Europe, resistant to crises, that shines as the European peace project in the whole world - for democracy, peace, freedom, human rights and human dignity!