What We Are
Formed in 2004, the Streit Council continues and advances the core mission of Federal Union and the Association to Unite the Democracies. We are an independent, non-partisan, non-profit incorporated 501(c)(3) organization. We promote the goal of a Union of Democracies primarily through research and education, fostering public discourse and awareness. We sponsor conferences, workshops, research projects, policy-networks.

Mission Statement
The Streit Council for a Union of Democracies works toward better-organized and stable cooperation among the experienced democracies as the key for more effective U.S. engagement in world affairs. A non partisan independent organization, it carries into the twenty-first century the traditions and principles which gave rise to the Federal Union movement. It builds on transatlantic and other inter-democracy institutions, supporting their treaty commitments to grow into ever wider membership and deeper integration, and their underlying vision rooted in democratic federalism.It does this principally by promoting research and education, and facilitating public discourse and awareness on democracy, federalism, Atlanticism, and the organization of inter-democracy relations.

Vision
We envision a future in which insecurity and want have been eradicated, and people’s freedom enhanced and extended beyond current borders. We believe that the world’s established democracies bear the responsibility to preserve and – where necessary – create effective, legitimate and accountable institutional frameworks to promote these goals at the global level. We believe in the interlocking principles of freedom and union as the basis without which democracy promotion, peace and prosperity cannot be sustained in an interdependent world, and that these principles need to underpin the evolution of international institutions. We believe that the time has arrived for the peoples of the established democracies to develop measures of joint decision-making among themselves and overcome the democratic deficit affecting their relations and interdependence. We are convinced that in a democratic world effective multilateralism can ultimately be achieved through a federal union of the established democracies, acting as a nucleus open to gradual universal inclusiveness.

What we work for
We work to enhance freedom, security, and peace through a union of democracies, and cooperation with all countries whenever feasible. We believe that any qualitative step forward in political evolution needs to be based upon the interlocking principles of freedom and union at both the national and the international levels. We believe in effective multilateralism. The world’s established democracies when working together are the global motor, enabling global institutions to be effective; when they disagree they become the global brake. As citizens of these democracies we continue to bear great responsibilities: to provide coherent global leadership, to strengthen our joint institutions and stabilize the international system – thus promoting common human concerns more effectively and consistently, at both regional and global levels. Building on the conception elaborated by Federal Union in 1939, we perceive two main interlocking levels of international organizational development: the inter-democracy level expressed in the growth of the Atlantic system of institutions ever since the Marshall Plan, and the global level expressed in the growth of the UN system. These two levels are both critically important in global affairs, and the future of global management depends largely on the extent to which they work together. Our original 1939 conception has shown renewed relevance since the end of the Cold War, with the increasing cooperation between the Atlantic and global levels, starting in the spheres of economic reform and democratic culture, and coming to include a hitherto unimaginable UN-NATO collaboration on peacekeeping and security. The long-held goal of internationalists –strengthening international organization and the structure of peace – translates today into a three-fold task: strengthening the institutions on the Atlantic and the global levels and enhancing their cooperation.