Movement Profile
About the Project
Fraternité 2020 (F2020) is a European Citizens’ Initiative interested in making EU exchange programmes more attractive and encouraging mobility to create a ‘united Europe at grass-roots level’. F2020 is so far supported by over 60 NGOs from all over Europe, 15 of the finest academics on EU affairs, and 7 MEPs representing most major parties in the European Parliament. All of this was achieved with a total budget of 0 (!) Euros. In addition to finding even more supporters, the next necessary step will be the creation of a Citizens’ Committee.
The origins of F2020
F2020 goes back to the ‘Convention of Young European Citizens’, organised in Cluny (France) every year since 2001. These conventions bring together youngsters from all over Europe to debate a topic of European dimensions with the goal of producing one common produit final (final product) in a kind of ‘European Parliament’. In 2010 the convention convened for the tenth time and alumni of the nine preceding years prepared a ‘Manifesto Fraternité 2020’ as a common 10-year-anniversary produit final that was concluded together with the participants of 2010. The European spirit surrounding the 2010 Cluny convention was honoured by the European Parliament, who awarded the whole convention the French Laureate of the European Charlemagne Youth Prize in 2011.
Our vision for EU mobility
For us mobility lies at the heart of the European project! By giving EU citizens the opportunity to spend time abroad, we give them a better chance to develop a European identity and find out what a united Europe means for them. This would put the individual citizen on top of the integration agenda. To that end, F2020 puts forward three goals: Our first goal is to increase EU spending on exchange programmes. F2020 is asking for €20 billion annually for EU exchange programmes. This would amount to about 15 percent of the overall EU budget, as opposed to only 1.5 percent spent on these programmes today.
The attractiveness of EU exchanges can also be increased by other means. F2020 suggests, for example, making the European Voluntary Service more inclusive by opening it up to people of all ages. Also, increased efforts to fully integrate volunteers into the host society could be undertaken, for example by offering language classes as well as classes about the host country’s traditions, history etc. throughout the service (Goal 2). This latter point seems more generalizable and all EU exchange programmes could in the future adopt a more explicit ‘learning component’ to stimulate cross-cultural understanding.
In effect, F2020 promotes a paradigm shift in the overall approach to European integration. This shift could be underlined by the introduction of an Open Method of Coordination that maps progress in the field of mobility (Goal 3). The EU has proven very successful in promoting economic and political integration in the past. It is time it embraces the integration of its civil societies more fully to consolidate the level of integration achieved already.
The steps ahead
In October and November 2011 we had two Coordination Group Meetings in Brussels to discuss about future steps. There was general agreement that we should keep building our base of supporters. This means that we will try to find even more NGOs that share F2020’s vision and would like to see the EU going in the direction we set out. If you are member of an NGO that would like to support F2020, we suggest you simply refer to our homepage for more information.
The most important next step, however, will be the creation of a Citizens’ Committee. This committee will be open to all interested individuals and NGOs and become the main decision-making body. In April 2012, it will be the members on that committee that will officially register F2020 as a European Citizens’ Initiative and give citizens all over the EU a chance to influence the future of Europe in a pro-mobility direction. Then it will be up to EU citizens to decide what kind of Europe they want.
Tags: Movement Profile