Submitted by Political Commission 1: Institutions and Governance.

JEF Europe,

• Understanding the deep roots of subsidiarity within federalism;

• Celebrating remarkable figures of the federalist movement, such as Guy Héraud or Alexandre Marc, who advocated for the rights of minoritised linguistic groups and stateless nations;

• Acknowledging the large variety and wealth of culture in the European Union;

• Recognizing that each member state has its own history and has had its own internal process of state-building;

• Convinced that a federal structure based on subsidiarity principles provides better governance than a centralized state;

• Concerned that some strongly unitary member states do not adequately represent the particularities of each region in their governance;

• Concerned that cultural and linguistic differences within some European countries are neglected and, at times, sidelined by central governments to the point that they are marginalized or disappeared;

• Mindful of the widespread processes of language substitution and repression undertaken by many European states during the past centuries;

• Regretting that not all EU member states have signed and ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages;

• Welcoming the public policies taken to protect minorities’ cultural traits that lead to the preservation of those cultures and languages;

• Mindful of the particular situations and needs of overseas territories part of EU member states;

• Encouraging the EU overseas countries and territories to become integral part of the EU as outermost regions;

• Welcoming and recognizing new languages and new cultures that arrived in Europe as a result of migration;

• Encouraging the EU and its member states to extend protections to new minorities and cultures, especially regarding the language of contact with authorities and optional courses for children in their foreign mother tongue;

• Recognizing the large variety of federal models, with their different characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages;

• Inspired by the well-functioning federal systems in several European states, regarding the devolution of political power to their regions and municipalities;

• Inspired by the multicultural and multilingual nature of several federal states, such as India and Canada;

• Determined that the principles of subsidiarity are seriously implemented by the European Union and its member states;

JEF Europe, therefore,

1. Calls for promoting subsidiarity and proportionality as the guiding principles of European and member-state governance;

2. Calls for unitary and centralized member states to allow real political power to elected regional and local institutions, to enable them to deal with regional and local issues themselves, in line with the principle of subsidiarity;

3. Calls for the dissemination of regional cultures and languages, and for the promotion of regionally-concentrated minorities, to be reflected in the institutional structure of the member states;

4. Calls for regions to have extended competencies, especially in the fields of education, culture, environment, transport and law enforcement;

5. Calls for municipalities to have extended competencies, especially in the fields of local transport, urban planning, landscape assets, social events, and local social cohesion;

6. Calls for each level of government to have competency over its own budget, and to raise at least a part of its income via specific taxes that the level of government can control, while minimizing the risk of any fiscal competition;

7. Calls for the European Union to ensure an equal level of prosperity in terms of economic and social development among regions by redistributing wealth when necessary/needed in order to prevent relevant economic and social disparities among the regions;

8. To that end, calls for a strengthening of the European cohesion policy funds (in particular the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund and the Just Transition Fund), funded by a real fiscal union, as these instruments help reduce economic disparities between regions and may promote growth;

9. Calls for the strengthening of the role of CSOs and NGOs engaged in the protection and promotion of linguistic and ethnic minorities (such as the Youth of European Nationalities (YEN) organisation);

10. Calls for all EU member states to ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages;

11. Calls for defense of minority and minoritised languages and cultures, notably using the following methods:

    1. Ensuring that regional languages tied to a particular region are official languages in that region;

    2. Granting minority language regions special competencies in the fields of education, media and culture;

    3. Providing children with the opportunity to pursue their primary and secondary education in their minority language, while ensuring their competence in the national language by teaching that language as well, and guaranteeing that such minority language schools are funded at the same level as other schools;

    4. Ensuring that all regions with a historical regional language provide primary and secondary education in their regional language as the vehicular language of teaching, and use these schools for language revitalization;

    5. Promoting bilingual schools that teach in both the national and a regional or minority language;

    6. Making the regional language a compulsory subject for all primary and secondary schools located there, even when their primary language is different, and ensuring all children obtain skills for everyday use in the language;

    7. Promoting a wide variety of cultural expression in the minority or regional language;

    8. Ensuring that all minoritised languages have media available in that language, especially newspapers, radio stations and a public television station;

    9. Promoting language revitalization of regional and minoritised languages, especially if they have historically suffered marginalization or if they are being replaced by the national language in day-to-day use;

    10. Ensuring that particular care is given to endangered and dying languages to guarantee their survival and their revitalization as spoken languages.