JEF Pan-European Referendum Campaign * 16 June 2007

Young European Federalists are launching a referendum action at European level on 16 June 2007. Contact asa.gunven@jef-europe.net if you want contribute actively in your city.

JEF PAN-EUROPEAN REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN * 16 June 2007

When, why, aims, action plan, find partners, press work.

When: Saturday 16 June 2007

Why then? The European Council meets 21-22 June and we want to send a strong message from every corner of Europe by acting jointly for a European Referendum. Also German Chancellor Angela Merkel will speak in the European Parliament (Strasbourg) on Wednesday 20 June to conclude on the German Presidency. In case of a successful campaign day, we will try to hand over our results from the action to her.

Aims:
• Get our message in the media and generally increase the awareness of the referendum campaign and webpage
• Collect signatures for the 1 million goal and jointly show how many people across Europe are prepared to work for and to support our demand
• Provoke debate about the constitution, the referendum and about Europe
• To show that the demand for a constitution and a pan-European consultative referendum reaches across the borders of Europe and that JEF is always prepared to act for its beliefs through acting together, using innovation, motivation and limitless federal energy and a true pan-European network beaten by few!

A "3-step" action plan:

1. Get attention
In every participating city we will build a huge artsy ballot box that also has the slogan of the campaign and web address on it -
"www.europeanreferendum.eu - Let the European people decide!". The box should preferably be 2x2x1 meter and be put in a strategic place – either on its own or in the place where the activists are collecting the signatures.
You can build the huge box e.g. from empty cartons/boxes you take in super markets, and then put them together. Use your imagination as a real democrat to build the coolest and biggest ballot box in Europe!

2. Activists in action
The action consist of two parts – feel free to use your own imagination to develop them in any way!

Collect signatures through a street referendum Across the borders of Europe we will all go out in our cities and local community on the campaign day to collect signatures for our 1 million
signature goal. To ask people to sign a list with a take it or leave it approach is not the most innovative or interactive approach. Instead we will let people participate in a street referendum where people can "vote" for if they want to have a referendum on the constitution or not – a method that has proven to be successful for interacting and provoking debate.

How to do it:
1. Make some artsy ballot boxes with www.europeanreferendum.eu visible on them. The ballot papers that you can use will be sent out by JEF Europe.
2. Leave the info stall/table at home and spread out the activists everywhere with their ballot boxes, maybe with balloons or even painted faces, and approach people on the streets, at bus stations or even people having picnics or on the beach. The people will be asked to vote if they
want a European referendum or not. Once they voted ask if they want to sign the petition - this is of course the goal of the action☺ (we will send out signature lists).
3. It is of course better that the more people you are, the bigger and cooler box you build to catch attention – but don't make it complicated: at the UEF stall at the Europa Fest in Berlin on 25 March, we managed to collect 500 signatures over a day – with 2 people standing there!

Stickers guerrilla action
JEF will send out templates for stickers/labels you can print using your own printer and also mini posters, with the web address and slogan on it. We will try to put these low budget – but yet efficient! – stickers/mini posters up across all of Europe in all visible places like the inside of the door of public toilets in bars, cafes, libraries, universities and on lampposts, garbage bins etc. This is by far the most effective way to reach out to many people with the webpage. Remember: toilets are an excellent place for (political) meditation in today's society! ☺

3. Getting political support and media
Important people!
Try to get some responsible politicians (e.g. the mayor of the town, an MP, a government ministry or someone else high profile) to either come to your action on the 16th or otherwise to get a meeting with them on the following Monday to hand over the result of the action. The purpose of this is two-fold. Firstly, you are making this person aware of the campaign and offering him/her to sign. Secondly, meeting (10 minutes is really enough) a public person and handing over signatures, is always interesting for the local media and newspaper!

Find partners!
Try to involve as many other NGOs as possible in the action – remember that you don't have to be a mad pro-European to be a friend of a Pan-European referenda. This is a great opportunity for us to interact with groups we usually don't meet and obviously to increase the support for the campaign. Also UEF, that is leading the referendum campaign, is very likely to join your activities if you invite them.

Press work!
Press is of course the number one method to get a message out to many people. Just before the end of the German presidency this issue will have a high media potential. JEF Europe will as usual prepare a PR to be sent out both before and after the action, that you can adapt. We have seen again and again that doing early press work, phoning, emailing and above all finding the most likely media, like local press, TV etc can really work! Remember that it is quite unique to have an action taking place simultaneously in so many cities.

Use your imagination to develop the action and don't foget to tell me about your plans on asa.gunven@jef.eu. And good luck!

Checklist:
• If you have questions as to what concretely you can do and how to organise it, please contact Åsa at: asa.gunven@gmail.com!
• When you decided whether to join the action or not please inform asa.gunven@gmail.com of your plans
• Don't forget to take photos of your action and your meeting with politicians etc. to hand over the result! Email them to vdh.vincent@gmail.com directly after the action so they can go online directly!
• Check the campaign website www.europeanreferendum.eu and inform Vincent if you need further material than what is provided there
• Write a very short impression of your experience with the action, and about the arguments our fellow citizens had! Send them also to
vdh.vincent@gmail.com

Material checklist:
• Huge artsy ballot box to catch attention
• Small artsy ballot boxes to be used by activists
• Ballot papers (from JEF Europe)
• Petition lists (from JEF Europe)
• Campaign stickers/posters (templates from JEF Europe)

--
åsa gunvén
vice-president
JEF-europe

(m-portugal) +351 96045 39 44
(m-sweden) +46 708 38 46 33
(e) asa.gunven@jef-europe.net