The conference on the future of Europe: Obstacles and opportunities to a European reform initiative that goes beyond crisis management

Nicolai von Ondarza and Minna Ålander

No 19/2021, SWP Comments from Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Abstract: Since the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Union (EU) has been struggling to implement structural reforms. New steps towards integration have only been possible under intense pressure during crises, and treaty change has become taboo. The Conference on the Future of Europe is supposed to open a new path and generate new ideas for the development of the Union through a hybrid format of interinstitutional negotiations and citizen participation. However, its launch has been delayed considerably - and not only by the Covid-19 pandemic; the aims, level of ambition, and structure of the Conference have also been the subject of controversy among the EU institutions. To create the momentum for lasting reform, the Conference must overcome four obstacles: the scepticism of many member states, the taboo of treaty change, interinstitutional rivalries, and past difficulties that the EU has had with citizen participation.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/256680/1/2021C19.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:swpcom:192021

DOI: 10.18449/2021C19

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SWP Comments from Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().