The Board of FAEF
![Schermafbeelding 2023-11-15 om 16.59.21](https://www.faef.eu/wp-content/uploads/Schermafbeelding-2023-11-15-om-16.59.21.png)
president
Manuel Galiñanes
Manuel Galiñanes is affiliated with the Academy of Medical and Health Sciences of Catalonia and the Balearic Island and has worked as a basic scientist and medical doctor in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Spain. He is the president of the Federal Alliance of European Federalists (FAEF) and a member of the Federalistes d’Esquerra (Catalonia, Spain), has participated in the Citizens’ Convention for a European Federation Constitution, and is researching and actively promoting humanitarian values and the citizens’ political participation rights.
![Mauro Cassarotto](https://www.faef.eu/wp-content/uploads/Mauro-Cassarotto.png)
General secretary
Mauro Casarotto
Mauro Casarotto har en examen i statsvetenskap och internationella relationer. Han arbetar som försäkringskonsult och frilansare. Han har under flera år varit aktiv i ideella organisationer som arbetar med kultur, idrott, medborgerliga rättigheter och politik.
![Peter Hovens Act internet kopie](https://www.faef.eu/wp-content/uploads/Peter-Hovens-Act-internet-kopie.jpg)
skattmästare
Peter Hovens
Peter Hovens is consultant in public administration. He has studied at the university of Twente. After 17 years of working as a civil servant at the municipality of Maastricht he started his own consultancy office. In this period he also was several years employed as alderman in three different municipalities.
![Leo Klinkers](https://www.faef.eu/wp-content/uploads/Leo-Klinkers.png)
styrelseledamot
Leo Klinkers
Leo Klinkers, PhD, är konsult inom offentlig förvaltning med en bakgrund inom konstitutionell rätt. Han har arbetat som konsult för regeringar och icke-statliga organisationer i en rad olika länder. Han är medförfattare till Europeiska federalistiska dokument och författare till Suveränitet, säkerhet och solidaritet.
![Javier Giner](https://www.faef.eu/wp-content/uploads/Javier-Giner.jpg)
styrelseledamot
Javier Giner
På 1980-talet var Javier medlem av federalisterna och 1988 var han med och grundade "Union-Europea de Mallorca". År 2005 blev han självständig yrkesutövare inom turistverksamhet och bodde på Mallorca men arbetade i Tyskland. År 2010 blev han aktivist och kämpade för en europeisk union av medborgare.
![Martina Scaccabarozzi](https://www.faef.eu/wp-content/uploads/Martina-Scaccabarozzi.jpg)
styrelseledamot
Martina Scaccabarozzi
She graduated in Political Science and had relevant working and living experience in different European countries where she has grown and cultivated her appreciation for Europe.
Hon har varit en politisk aktivist i hela sitt liv och har arbetat frivilligt i flera miljöorganisationer och organisationer med inriktning på social sammanhållning.
![Ivan Gil Carretero](https://www.faef.eu/wp-content/uploads/Ivan-Gil-Carretero.png)
styrelseledamot
Ivan Gil Carretero
Ivan graduated in law, political science and European business, working with data applications and being involved in several political organizations related to federalism and freedom of speech. His main topic of interest is how new technologies can serve to develop and strengthen democratic principles within polyarchycal societies.
![Rene Graafsma](https://www.faef.eu/wp-content/uploads/Rene-Graafsma.png)
styrelseledamot
René Graafsma
René Graafsma is an independent management consultant working in the financial sector and the 'world of public order and safety'. As a journalist, publicist, educator and trainer, he incorporates his experiences into result-oriented projects with social value and associated media productions.
![MIchael Clarjen Arconada](https://www.faef.eu/wp-content/uploads/MIchael-Clarjen-Arconada.jpg)
styrelseledamot
Michael Clarjen Arconada
Lifelong interests-research in the fundamental etiological factors of illness and optimal regeneration sequences. A published author, he has over 45 years of experience working on fundamental issues of Ecological Communities / Health-Education Systems: Self-Regeneration Processes and Self-Regulation Methodologies. He has taught at University of New York (Southampton Campus / Friends World Program). Recognizing the profound link between illness, toxicity and environmental degradation, he has developed global programs seeking environmental regeneration and universal healthcare. He has forged the Code, ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES / Living the Code: Return to the Ecological Garden; as the main catalytic instrument for the regeneration of Human Beings and Societies, and their transformation toward genuine Optimal Sustainable Organization and Development (Ecological Communities - Federal Systems of Government).
![Lorenzo](https://www.faef.eu/wp-content/uploads/Lorenzo.png)
co-founder of FAEF
Lorenzo Sparviero
On November 9th we suddenly lost our co-founder, backbone and great inspirer of FAEF: Lorenzo Sparviero.
A great federalist and a man of incredible sagacity and vision and tireless activism. Lorenzo will always be an example and a moral guide for us.
Lorenzo wrote the following about the beginning of FAEF:
FEDERATE THE FEDERALISTS: ‘EUROPE WILL BE A FEDERATION, OR WILL NOT BE’
Following the unexpected ‘call to enter the field’ that marked the beginning of my commitment as a federalist activist, another, equally strong recent one has taken over: the call to federate the federalists!
An idea that has gradually transformed into a passion at the limit of obsession, for me and a mantra for others who, to my amazement, are starting to use it without, however, understanding the deep and almost ‘esoteric’ origin of the message that proposes a change in discontinuity, a ‘quantum leap’ compared to the linear and traditional approach followed until now by the movements that praise federalism, but without making any progress in its implementation, insisting on the concept of European unity in the confederal sense, based on intergovernmental negotiation and not on a Constitution of the Federal State, voted for by the people of Europe.
I therefore feel the need and the duty to clarify and explain this apparently simple formula in understandable terms.
It all began with a sudden idea, an enlightenment, born as a reaction to the observation of the dispersion of forces - already scarce and inappropriate to achieve the goal of creating a federal Europe - pursued by the pro-European friends with whom I was and I am in contact, the idea-project of: federate the federalists!
Behind the definition of Federalism one can understand different things, even opposite.
In recent Italian political experience, the term federalism has been used as a flag by the Northern League (today no longer regionalist but nationalist, declaring its sympathy for the extreme and sovereign right). At the beginning (Lega Nord) to divide Italy into macro-regions (Centre, North and South) and focusing on the detachment of the rich and productive North from the South, poorer and backward in the industrial field, poor finance and organization of public administration in the provision of public services. Today, after the turning point of the young Salvini who imposed a break with the Bossian past by launching the nationalistic slogan ‘the Italians first’ focusing on the exclusion of the new derelicts, the immigrants, transforming the Lega movement from ‘federalist’ to ‘nationalist and sovereignist’, closely related to the nationalist and xenophobic movements of Le Pen (France) and Farage (Brexit) and sympathies for the ‘strong men’ like Putin or even like Trump (USA first!).
This improper use of the term ‘federalist’ has led to confusion and regression on the part of the European people towards a dangerous return to ‘nationalism’ which, as the French President, Mr. Macron, who is also a ‘federalist’ but who, in practice, is inclined to continue the intergovernmental administrating method, recently denounced to sound the alarm about possible scenarios for a return to civil war in Europe.
This is the state of the art in Europe today, where people are confused, frightened and inclined to close themselves up as hedgehogs against the threats of immigrants, Islamic terrorism, competition between European countries, etc. The road of the ‘disintegration of the European dream’, other than European unity, of which Brexit is the first clear sign of the new crazy trend, is being thoughtlessly taken.
So what is Federalism and the need to ‘federate the federalists’?
Federalism means in a nutshell to unite what is different, while respecting the diversity of one another, taking care of a handful of common interests, served by a common objective: the creation of a federalist state, a European Federation, based on a Constitution, democratically ratified by the European citizens, reflecting the best ideologies and values so far laboriously acquired by our western civilization.
The slogan ‘federate the federalists’, is the call for a new urgent political program to be implemented through the grass-roots pro-European movements in order to stop the current wretched course of history. And it is the first stage of a ‘non-traditional’ and complex route that aims:
- to make European citizens aware of what is at stake, focusing on correct information and direct knowledge, through person to person training and multimedia courses launched on the web in every European language, clarifying not only the ideal but also the concrete superiority of the new federal state structure with respect to the current hybrid situation and its potential catastrophic developments in the event of a return to the nationalisms of the past (40% of the world's population lives in federal states, with advantages in terms of internal administration, the ability to negotiate in foreign policy, taking care of common interests like European defence, border protection, the fight against international crime, etc.), but, above all, by ensuring lasting peace and peace within its internal borders...
- to develop a debate in every European country through federalist and federated movements under a single organization that leads to the shared definition of objectives to be achieved and implemented in a timely manner, through the awareness of national parliaments and governments and European institutions, speaking to them with one voice and also with ‘peremptory’ tones. These inalienable objectives are: the immediate definition and approval of a European Federal Constitution and the establishment of the Federal State followed by elections to its governing bodies and legislative and administrative bodies.