Feature photo: UEF Meeting in Warsaw 2012 | © Heinrich Kümmerle
By email of 26/7/2023, Luisa Trumellini informed the European Movement, Italian Section, of Mr. Gozi's decision to step down as UEF President. This decision has not been communicated to us, either by its author, by Mrs Echterhoff, or by the vice-presidents of the UEF. The UEF sections were also apparently not informed.
Is Sandro Gozi leaving because he is concerned by the worrying state in which he leaves the UEF? It has been a long time since we received a statement from UEF's finances.
The results of his presidency seem limited to the sterile participation of the UEF in “the Conference on the future of Europe”. The very timid conclusions of this Conference were received by the European Parliament, but they were ignored by the European Council, both at ministerial level and at the level of Heads of State and Government.
As a Member of the European Parliament and Chairman of the Spinelli Group, Mr. Gozi refrained from proposing that the EP be transformed into a Constituent Assembly. It has not tabled any proposal for a European federal constitution. He contented himself with a minimalist draft amendment to the electoral law, which leaves intact the disrespect for Article 9 TEU establishing the principle of equality of Europeans, highlighted by the Federal Court of Karlsruhe in 2009.
A UEF congress had been announced for the second half of 2023, but we have not yet received a convocation. The rules determining how to hold this congress are not clear, because the amendments to the statutes voted in Vienna in 2018 and in Valencia in 2021 have not yet been published to my knowledge. The statutes as amended on 10/10/2008 in Paris seem to be the only ones in force.
It is high time for the Federal Committee to straight things out, otherwise the UEF will end up like the Titanic.
Dear Jean, the resignation of Sandro Gozi is probably more related to an article from Sarah Wheaton in Politico of December 15, 2022 and the corresponding reactions of other MEPs to it. If these claims by Wheaton are true, then Gozi's resignation as UEF president is long overdue.
Irrespective of this, and to my great regret, the predictions I made about the last German-Italian putsch are now being fulfilled Paolo Vacca had done, and persuaded my better half, as well as myself, to stop working on the Federal Committee or the UEF Congress.
You are absolutely right that something must be done! But first of all, the putschists are asked here, who have brought this misery to us. Unfortunately, one after the other is now leaving the sinking ship.