Dear President David Sassoli
Dear President Charles Michel
Dear Chancellor Angela Merkel
Dear President Ursula von der Leyen
We appeal the European institutions to adopt as an urgent matter a short and unequivocal common declaration confirming that “in Europe democracy is an inalienable and unnegotiable right”.
This declaration has to:
- Hold firm on the foundation and legacy of the democratic system, its practical concept and core elements of the Rule of Law, such as transparency, accountability, the democratic process for enacting law, legal certainty, prohibition of arbitrariness, access to justice before independent and impartial courts, respect for human rights, non-discrimination and equality before the law
- Keep in mind that the accession (art. 49 TEU) and the membership (art. 6 TEU) to the European Union includes the supremacy of law, the institutional balance, the judicial review, the (procedural) fundamental rights including the right to a judicial remedy as well as the principles of equality and proportionality.
The full respect of all these principles exclude any compromise on the interpretation of the European rules in the implementation of EU legal, economic, political and financial acts.
With this in mind, there is no room for hypothetical “plans B”:
- The road towards an enhanced cooperation is blocked by the Treaty: the Next Generation EU is founded on the article 175 TFEU on economic, social and territorial cohesion and the article 326 TFEU forbids an enhanced cooperation that infringe this cohesion
- The idea of transforming the Next Generation EU in an intergovernmental treaty is erroneous, since it will result in no European public debt and twenty-five national debts.
Polish and Hungarian governments could block the Multiannual Financial Framework and lead to an increase in the ceiling of their own resources but only indirectly the Next Generation EU.
Poland’s and Hungary’s veto could stoke talk of Polskexit and Magyexit inevitably creating a deep gap between the two governments and their citizens, most of which want to remain even more that the majority that wanted to join the EU in 2003.
It is important to allow European political parties and Civil Society organisations promote Citizens’ Conventions in Warsaw and Budapest to discuss about the relationship with EU as a public space of the Conference on the future of Europe.
It is now necessary and urgent to reform the European Union and establish a new constitutional Treaty with countries and people accepting to abandon the inefficient intergovernmental method and build a new democratic, fair and inclusive system.
