On the 30th of April 2020 the Petition to the European Parliament EU CAN DO IT will be presented in front of the Petition Committee. A group of mayors of European citizes, led by Leoluca Orlando, Mayor of Palermo (Italy) is gathering to support the request for a joint reply of the European Union to address covid19, social, economic, and climate crises.
We, the undersigned,
Believe that the call by the President of the European Commission for a Marshall Plan for Europe indicates the direction to go beyond what nation states can realize on their own and affirm our common destiny as Europeans, which is to be translated into concrete actions just as in the aftermath of World War II.
Such actions must not only address the forms and procedures of economic measures benefitting this or that country, but they must address the practical realization of a new vision for Europe by sharing, as never before, our stock of knowledge, social relations and economic resources to strengthen Democracy and the Rule of Law, to improve citizens’ quality of life and sustainable development, as well as to build a more open and welcoming society. We have to highlight that rights must be guaranteed in order not to remain on paper, and that only a big common action could allow us not to go back to the way things were “before”, because “before” things were highly unfair and unequal.
We will need the support of Mayors from all around Europe, and beyond, coming together to provide more efficient tools to those who can, and must, make a difference in their territories at local level.
For this reason, we support the following petition to the European Parliament:
“We are living in extraordinary and risky times. We need the EU to take the leadership in putting in place an action plan able to address in the short and medium-term concrete actions to answer the global challenges we are facing today. No State can face alone the consequences of Covid19.
We call on the EP to implement adequate mechanisms to resume its work as soon as possible, and to organize a space for the elaboration, proposal and mobilization of all possible instruments. The current EU institutional system has shown its weakness and inadequacy. In addition to short term measures, it is necessary to relaunch the initiative of democratic reform of the EU in order to make it fit for purpose.
The EP must be at the forefront of this effort, and urge the EU to push for a strategy to trigger this path, based on 5 pillars:
1- Giving a systemic and common European Union response to the Covid-19 crisis;
2- Enhancing reforms of the EU healthcare system and civic protection instruments and competences to respond to outbreaks;
3- Implementing all economic, financial and monetary policy measures to allow the EU to unlock resources and common measures to support citizens with the consequences of the pandemic, including measures for the mutualization of public debts, own resources for the EU budget, according to a radical ecological reform of European taxation (including the acceleration of the Green New Deal);
4- Turning the first stages of the Conference on the Future of Europe into a public online assembly and reshape its goals;
5- Contributing to a global mechanism to prevent and face epidemics and pandemics.
Leoluca Orlando, Mayor of Palermo (Italy)
Gabriela Staszkiewicz, Mayor of the City of Cieszyn (Poland)
Basílio Horta, Mayor of Sintra (Portugal)
Rui Moreira, Mayor of Porto (Portugal)
Emil Boc, Mayor of Cluj-Napoca
Michele Abbaticchio, Mayor of Bitonto (Italy)
Enea Emiliani, Sindaco di Sant'Agata sul Santerno (Italy)
Christos Doulkeridis, Mayor of Ixelles, Region Bruxelles capitale (Belgium)
Jacek Majchrowski, Mayor of Krakow (Poland)
Joan Ribó Canut, Mayor of Valencia (Spain)
Ullrich Sierau, Lord Mayor of Dortmund (Germany)
Philip Close, Mayor of Bruxelles, commune de la Région de Bruxelles Capitale (Belgium)
Stephane Roberti, Mayor of Forêt, commune de la Région de Bruxelles Capitale (Belgium)
Giorgio Gori, Mayor of Bergamo, (Italy)
Emilio Del Bono, Mayor of Brescia (Italy)
Jean-Luc Moudenc, Président de Toulouse Métropole (France)
To join the network of mayors supporting #EUCANDOIT you can send an email to virginia.fiume@protonmail.com
HAVE A LOOK AT WHY EUROPEAN MAYORS WANT A JOINT EUROPEAN STRATEGY TO ADDRESS CORONAVIRUS, SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND CLIMATE CRISES.