While all eyes are still on Strasbourg, we retrace a few moments of our speech at the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday 8 September.

Suzana Carp, Board Director of the ECIT Foundation, presented our European Citizens’ Initiative “Voters Without Borders” in front of the PETI Committee, members of the Commission, other stakeholders and representatives of civil society. In just over 5 minutes we had the opportunity to tell the past, present and future of VWB, bringing to the MEPs’ attention the need to reform the European electoral system to ensure true and inclusive universal suffrage. 

Despite the failure to collect the one million signatures needed for the ECI, we still achieved important results, which we reported to the PETI Committee, which decided to refer the ECI’s follow-up to the European Parliament Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO), together with our request to the European Parliament for drawing up an Own-Initiative Report on voting rights, appearing as a great result to us. 

We also had the opportunity to briefly express our concern about the current voting situation in Italy, with the contribution made by Martina Rubino, from ECIT’s Youth Taskforce.

Yesterday, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in her speech for #SOTEU2022 ↗: “Let us rediscover the Maastricht spirit — stability and growth can only go hand in hand”. We should remember that the same spirit is the one that led to the creation of European citizenship. In this sense, we hope that this rediscovery – made also throughout the Conference on the Future of Europe – will also bring attention to a necessary reform of European political rights. 

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