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JEF Europe Direct Membership

Background paper concerning statutory change to be put forward in coming Congress – feedback from the FC welcomed!

 

Why do we need a direct membership to JEF Europe?

 

Today we have two sorts of members of JEF

• Member sections

• Direct members (only possible for people coming from countries with no official JEF section)

What are the (smaller) drawbacks with this model?

• The basic assumption of our model is that people have a certain “home” section that they can relate to during their JEF “life”

• Many JEFers tend to travel around and live in different countries. You might not even have been active in your home country, and it might be hard to decide where to be a member.

• People that don’t get involved at home or don’t have a local section should not get lost. We have example of official sections that only exist on the paper and where new potential members are lost – members that could once involved in JEF help to build up the section anew. There is potential for more e-campaigning and internet-based JEF work as well as for those that don’t have a section to get involved in.

• In some weak sections there can be confusing situations with alternative organisations on the ground, later changing to be the JEF section. This can often work disencouraging and also make involvement hard.

• As a federal organization it is odd that we have a strict national focus (compared to AEGEE – they have only local sections, LYMEC – they have direct membership….)

• Some (potential) activists might simply not like to affiliate with one section / member state for ideological reasons – because they precisely appreciate the supranational character of our organisation.

→ These problems could be tackled by adding a direct (individual) membership to JEF Europe. This would allow anyone to be a direct member of JEF Europe in addition to, or instead of, being a section member.

 

What potential problems should be avoided when creating direct membership for JEF Europe?

• JEF transnational should not become a “competing section” with the national sections. Best is always if people can get active in their local and national JEF section!

• It should not be a small core group (for example made up by the FC directly elected delegates or a clique in Brussels) that form an “elite clique”. Rather the structure should encourage anyone, anywhere, to get active in any way they choose to.

• It should be no large administrational burden for JEF Europe caused by direct membership.

• Political representation should be fair in correlation to section representation and internal procedures should be democratic. This representation must not be misused by individuals or sections seeking influence.

 

Model of JEF Europe direct membership

Based on the above, and also consulting the LYMEC statues that have a provision for individual members that has proved to work with no problems, the EB proposes the following model for JEF Europe direct membership. The idea is to make administration as simple as possible, and for the direct membership to work as an extension of the direct membership that exists today.

Structure:

• There is no board or other structure for the direct members to avoid bureaucracy, avoid that JEF transnational becomes like a competing section and the non involvement of people outside a “clique”.

• Direct members may organise themselves in any forms of groups, geographically or virtually. These groupings do not become sections of JEF Europe but will function as non-formal working structures.

• Direct members fall under the decision of the EB, FC and Congress in accordance with their statutes. Their statutes will be found in JEF’s Rules of Procedures.

→ a simple model with space for anyone’s involvement at their own initiative.

Political representation within JEF’s statutory bodies:

Congress. The directly elected members will be treated jointly as one section when calculating their representation to the congress. These Congress delegates will somehow elected in electronic votes organised by JEF-Europe’s Secretary General. For the procedure for how to elect the representative(s) please see the draft rules of procedures.

Federal Committee. The direct members have no representation in the FC. The reason is to avoid the potential for others using the direct membership to gain more power and further to ensure the direct membership has if not the same, then rather less power then sections. Any direct member may obviously run as an individual elected FC member.

→ The direct members have democratic representation in JEF Europe but cannot be misused to gain power by anyone.

Practically how will it function:

Application. Membership application and payment is made online to the accounts of JEF-Europe. Like this the secretariat also has all information of paying direct members automatically filed.

Administration. Calls for election (will only take place for Congress delegates) and the administration of the direct membership is the responsibility of the Secretary General of JEF Europe.

Membership fee. Membership fees for the direct members will be decided upon by the FC and will be substantially higher then the membership fee paid to JEF Europe by the sections (for example 15 EUR/year).

Elections. Congress delegates will be elected through democratic electronic elections where all JEF transnational members can put themselves forward. These elections will take place around 2 months prior to the Congress and will be administrated by the Secretary General of JEF Europe.

 

jef_transnational_rop_changes.pdf

jef_transnational_statutes_changes.pdf