View source for Preamble of the Charter for Europa

We live in different parts of Europe with different historical, cultural and political backgrounds. We all continously arrive in Europe. We share experiences of social movements and struggles, as well as experiences of creative qpolitical work among our communities, on municipal and national levels. We have witnessed and participated to the rise of multitudes across the world in 2011.

In fact, the European 'we', we are talking about here, is unfinished, it is in the making, it is a performative process of coming together.

In the wake of the financial crisis we have experienced the violence of austerity, the attack on established social and labour rights, the spread of poverty and unemployment in many parts of Europe. We have faced a radical transformation of the constitutional framework of the EU, which has become more and more the expression and articulation of capitalist and financial command. At the same time we have lived through a profound displacement of national constitutional frameworks, we have learned that they do not provide any effective defense against the violence of the crisis. In the ruins of representative democracy, xenofobic chauvinisms, ethnic fundamentalisms, racisms, new and old forms of fascism proliferate.

We rise up against all this.

We want to initiate a different kind of constituent process on the basis of social and political struggles across the european space. This Charter aims to open up a process towards a radical political and economic change of Europe focussing on the safeguarding of life, dignity and democracy. It is a contribution to the production and creation of the commons, a process of democratic regeneration in which people are protagonists of their own lives. In the squares and the networks we have learned something simple that has changed forever our way of inhabiting the world. We have learned what 'we' can achieve together.

We invite people across and beyond Europe to join us, to contribute to this charter, to make it live in struggles, imagination, and constituent practices.