Citizens’ Convention Progress Report 24

Rescheduling the CC Agenda

Dear Members of FAEF’s Citizens’ Convention,

Due to the sudden change of events, with dangerous situations for Europe, but also the opportunities that could emerge in this new phase, we would like to change the agenda of the process of amending the draft federal constitution. In the sense of speeding up the process. 

Currently, we use three weeks for each article. One week for initial proposals to amend an article. The second week for discussion in the Discussion Forum. The third week for the Board to decide on a provisional final version. 

We are going to shorten this procedure to two weeks. One week for submitting and discussing proposals for improvement. The second week to adopt a new (provisional) text.

The reason for acceleration is that the Conference on the Future of the EU will end in the course of May. We would like to have our own federal constitution ready before that time.

The new schedule will then be as follows:
– improving art. VI -> ending on March 18^th
– improving art. VII -> March 19^th – April 1^st
– improving articles VIII, IX and X (very short articles) -> April 1^st – April 15^th.

We submit the provisional final product to a small group of Citizens’ Convention members to check, word for word, what can be improved further, and what should be deleted. We also work on a professional English version. As it stands, we think the Constitution (articles and explanatory notes together) will amount to ±100 pages.

As soon as the final text of the Constitution is ready, we will launch a comprehensive Petition to raise awareness of our Constitution. The members of the Citizens’ Convention will be the first to whom we present this Petition.

So, if you still have something to contribute to Article VI, then please, do it by this weekend. 

In order to make the best use of the reduced time, Articles VII, VIII, IX and X are already open on the website. Everyone is free to study these articles for the possibility of improvements even now.

On behalf of the Board,
Leo Klinkers
President FAEF