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The European Union after several delays opened the Conference on the Future of Europe on 9 May 2021. Its purpose, according to a March 2021 Joint Declaration from the presidents of the EU institutions, is to “open a new space for debate with citizens to address Europe’s challenges and priorities”. The conference is aimed in particular at younger Europeans.
The broader context is that there is a widely-shared, though far from uncontested, view that the EU needs reform. The euro and refugee crises, the coronavirus pandemic, Brexit, the rise of populism, and a less rule-governed and predictable global order have raised concerns about the EU’s ability to deliver solutions to pressing problems. There are also concerns about the EU’s democratic deficit and its weak connection to citizens, though it should be noted that the EU has exhibited greater-than-expected coherence in the handling of Brexit. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the EU has launched the Next Generation EU recovery fund. However, what that will amount to in terms of EU’s long-term resilience remains unclear.
The Joint Declaration presented the conference as a way to solicit citizens’ views on the issues that matter to them, and what they think the EU should do about those issues. The conference will devise platforms and forums for active engagement with citizens. The question is what that means in terms of reform, and the broader impact the conference will have on the EU’s future nature and direction of development.
The conference’s outcome is uncertain. One reason for this is that the European Commission, Council and Parliament, which are in joint charge of the conference, have very different views on the conference’s goals. From the three institutions’ proposals, two different visions emerge. We can label these two visions vehicle for reform versus forum for reflection. The European Parliament wants the process to be an exercise in participatory democracy that results in tangible reforms, including treaty reforms, to improve EU governance and reinforce the EU’s democratic legitimacy. In contrast, the Council has a far less ambitious position on citizens’ participation, underlines the need to focus on ‘policy first’, and has stated that the process should not lead to treaty changes.
The Joint Declaration gives no commitment that the citizens’ deliberations will be followed up with tangible action, beyond the production of a report. Nevertheless, the Joint Declaration is not without democratic ambitions. It notes that: “(w)e, the Presidents of the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission, aim to give citizens a say on what matters to them” [sic].
Different visions and institutional responsibilities
The ambiguity of asking people to have a say whilst refraining from committing to a course of action to follow up on what they want can be related to differences in the institutions’ democratic sensitivities and societal responsiveness. The three institutions have their roots in different spheres of political life and in different visions of the EU. The European Parliament is situated in the world of representative-participatory democracy and seeks to domesticate EU politics as part of developing the EU into a democratic polity. The Commission has its roots in administration and technocratic governance. The Council is situated in the world of diplomacy and is particularly attuned to the EU as a body of sovereign states. The domestic/international tension also marks the EU’s institutional structure as a complex mix of supranational and intergovernmental institutions. This tension can also be said to be reflected in the two core visions for the conference: vehicle for reform versus forum for reflection...
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