Dear First Vice-President of the European Parliament,

Dear Mr Karas,

Thank you very much for organising a seminar as part of the Article 17 dialogue on Monday 27 June 2023 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the EU single market, looking back on achievements and forward to future developments.

The undersigned and several other members of the European Association for Free thought(EAFT), a non-confessional organisation, attended and spoke.

We have emphasised that the impact of these non-confessional organisations on the achievements and future of the single market is felt above all in the area of the free movement of people and services and consumer protection.

More specifically, our organisation EAFT has played a significant role in helping to define or draft the ethics of the digital legislative framework and recently also of artificial intelligence, based on the defence of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and Humanism.

We have already presented our ideas in a comprehensive document discussed at a seminar organised by the European Commission in 2018 entitled "A different take on Europe".

We also explained our ideas in our three global contributions (defence, migration and governance) which were put on the multilingual platform of the conference on the Future of the European Union, which ended in May 2022, and which were also sent to the European Parliament.

We would like to express our appreciation of the fact that the seminar you organised to mark the 30th anniversary of the EU single market brought together philosophical and non-confessional organisations on the one hand, and churches and religious associations on the other.

Yet it has to be said that the number of speakers was not balanced, with only one non-denominational speaker as against seven religious speakers despite the fact that secularism represents an increasingly important part , if not a majority, of the European population, at least in Western Europe.

A meeting scheduled for 5 June 2023 with President Metsola was unfortunately cancelled at the last minute, but we would like to be able to arrange a meeting with you, as Vice-President responsible for the dialogue on Article 17 of the TFEU, to set out our views.

We hope you will find the time to meet with us and we will take the liberty of contacting your secretariat.

Eric PARADIS Guy T'HOOFT

Director of AEPL Chairman of AEPL