The ECIT Annual Conference 2022: An Invitation to the Media and Wider Public

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About?
A statute for more inclusive and outward-looking European citizenship (see programme here)

When?
Tuesday 29 November from 9.30 am to 6 pm

Where?
At the Brussels Press Club (95 Rue Froissard, Brussels) and online

Why?
This 7th Annual Conference on European Citizenship is being organised by the ECIT Foundation bringing together civil society activists, academics and policy makers. This event will be an opportunity to discuss a first major potential breakthrough in the development of Union citizenship since it was established by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993: the demand, first made by the ECIT Foundation and now taken up by both the European Parliament and the citizen-led Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), for a Statute on European Citizenship.

It will also be the occasion for brainstorming to approve ECIT’s Draft Declaration.

A 10- POINT PROPOSAL FOR
A STATUTE ON EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP

The Draft Declaration puts forward 10 proposals for such a statute, so that this unique transnational citizenship is developed with a new generation of rights and becomes more relevant and inclusive within the EU and extended to neighbouring countries. EU citizenship should be adapted to the wider new Europe emerging from the pandemic, global warming, the energy crisis and the war against Ukraine. Europe is too important an issue to be left solely to governments and European institutions.

The Draft Declaration demands a European Citizenship not just of rights but also responsibilities, including responsibility for the development of this citizenship itself.  The next step should be a European Citizens’ Assembly building on those held during the CoFoE especially since there is a striking similarity between the proposals made by ECIT in its 40-article draft for a Statute and by citizens in the Conference.

The ECIT Annual Conference 2022 is funded by: