Thomas had ticked me off when I had called him to congratulate for becoming president of the Representative European Union. He had answered me that his dream wasn’t to be at the head of politics, but to put the politics on everyone’s head. He was right : And yesterday, March 12, 2033, Thomas Rhesman had become the president of the REU. And with him, it’s almost all the European citizens that were elected. Indeed, following the last-month assessment, 87.4 % of the European population had contributed to the setting up of the recent laws and projects. He had announced me this incredible statistic with sparkles in the eyes. About nine people out of ten were involved directly in the society’s improvement through REUNITE, the well-known government platform. I would never have thought that 15 years earlier…

16 years I should say, because it’s in 2017 – I was 18 – that we started. I say “we” because we were only two at that moment. Thomas had grabbed me to help him becoming mayor of our municipality, at the 2018 local elections. At first I made fun of it, it was so idealistic. The average age at the municipal Committee was 48 ! First Thomas was only 18 and secondly he needed to be at the head of some political party’s list to be elected, with more than 600 signatures of citizens. But surprisingly he seemed already aware, so we didn’t think and we got to work.

First, we were not attracted by any party so we created ours. Named “Action”, its goal was to act directly through concrete projects and civil actions. 7 other young joined us, happy to feel active for our municipality’s projects. We spread the roles and then everything speeded up : meetings, parties, workshops in schools and in homes etc,..

It’s in February 2018 that REUNITE was started. On this public platform we exposed our projects, program and explained what we had already realized by video’s. This was a way of informing the citizens about political action. The idea originally came from Franklin D. Roosevelt which had done that with the radio in the 30’s to inform the US population about his actions. Shared on all social medias, the platform quickly attracted half a thousand of people ! Through this way of communication, many were participating to our conferences and events. As a result, in October 2018, Thomas, 19 years old, was elected mayor with a thousand signatures and that was never seen before ! The important detail is that the voters’ average age was 25, and every of them were members of REUNITE and had given their support. Why were so many young people suddenly involved in politics ? That was the question of the other traditional parties. We simply managed to get people informed and involved in our projects by REUNITE, with chats, video’s, lives, etc. This new political kind of involvement was called “E-participation”. The E-voting inside the platform followed soon afterwards and by this online voting system we could be aware of the citizen’s tendencies on projects to realize.

The problem now was that citizens from other municipalities got interested in the platform as well and we couldn’t avoid them to register ! And around the 2019 elections for the Brussels’ region government, one outsider member of REUNITE suggested Thomas to go for it. He wanted him to represent the executive power in Brussels as he was doing it so well in his municipality. That sparked things off, he went for it and was elected to succeed Rudy Vervoort ! He was thus elected President Minister of the Brussels Regional Council. Furthermore there were already about 68000 people on REUNITE. Our project, Thomas and I, had become their project. The project to us all, because it was all the members that were running things ! That was literally the revolution of democracy.

Of course, the union of every Brussels’ citizens contributed to the improvement of the city. In 2020, the centralization of every citizen’s ideas had enabled the inauguration of the Urban Farming Plan added by the Global Reemployment Plan. The first one aimed for cultivating every single soil parcel that were public, and unused. Citizens were in charged of it and the population could then benefit of free crops. The idea was originally created in Todmorden (UK) in 2008. The second plan, the GRP, aimed for the reinsertion of homeless people in society with a big campaign covering for example insertion centers and renovation of unused or deserted buildings. As a result, in 2023, so only three years later, poverty was eradicated. The evidence came out: REUNITE had an inestimable political action power. And guess what, 127 cities throughout Europe had already adopted the platform to open communication between politicians and citizens. Among them, 4 capitalcities: Vienna, Valletta, Vilnius and Athens ! The European Council couldn’t ignore this phenomenon : this new representative democracy, thanks to the software and hat happened then ? REUNITE has been directly adopted on February 1st, 2024, as a “political transparency and communication system” for the European Union. REUNITE was thus extended and organized in sections and sub-sections depending on the geographic scale of action.

The political impulsion was now coming from citizens and the European Union has been renamed, on the vote of the European Parliament : ” Representative European Union”. The E-ID, the electronic European Identity card, saw its creation soon afterwards. That could enable the official online vote, for local, regional, national and European elections. That started the era of a Europe ruled by citizens. Of course there was still the European political structure : European council – Council of European Union – European Parliament and European Commission, but all transparency was done. Democracy was truly established. REUNITE also found its meaning : ” the REU’s Network of Interaction for The Europeans “.

This commissioning opened our eyes on the society’s problems, the Global Reemployment Plant took place on a European scale and it formed the greatest project ever set up in the 21st century to this day ! It took 10 years to eliminate, in Europe, the major problem of the Human kind History: poverty.

About Thomas ? he didn’t remain at the Brussels Region government but became National Minister of Labour in 2028, Belgian Prime Minister 2 years later and you know what happened next… He became yesterday the President of the European Council, which means he became the first representative of the REU, and with him 87,4 % of the European citizens. He was only 34 but was given support by almost all Europe.

Almost ? That is the current problem : many European Fellows still don’t have any access to the internet. That’s why the Commission has planned to launch, on the impulsion of the states concerned, the IGA Plan: the Internet Global Access Plan, with the goal to reach for 2040 all the European connected and therefore give them an access to REUNITE. Now, you should log in to the platform, in the REU section, because the inauguration speech of Thomas Rhesman is broadcasted, and it’s about to start…