Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Releasing Europe’s democratic genie

Alberto Alemanno 1st July 2021

The Conference on the Future of Europe might sow the seeds of a genuine European political space.

Conference on the Future of Europe
Alberto Alemanno

After a year of wrangling among the European Union institutions, causing its delay, the Conference on the Future of Europe gathered for the first time in Strasbourg on June 19th. It might be tempting to dismiss the conference as yet another Brussels gimmick—a top-down, perfunctory exercise with a major pro-EU bias and with only one parent, the French president, Emmanuel Macron. Yet that would be premature at best and fallacious at worst.

This is the first time since 2007 that the EU has embarked on a process of institutional reform. To do so in these geopolitically unprecedented times—inside and outside the union—appears quite remarkable. Some might even call it brave, if others reckless. But due to the dysfunctionality of today’s Europe, the conference emerges—as dramatically revealed by the pandemic—as a by-product of the union’s incomplete nature. If the EU had a mature transnational political space, such an exercise would not be needed.

And this conference differs greatly from the 2003 Convention on the Future of Europe, which drafted the EU’s never-ratified constitution. It is not set to reform the treaties directly. Rather, it is meant to be a preparatory process, which could lead the European Council to initiate treaty change.

This suggests EU leaders may have learnt from the past. Rather than getting entangled in highly divisive and abstract themes, the conference will put substantive policy issues affecting EU citizens at its core. Should those issues call for solutions the EU can’t offer within its constitutional prerogatives, then treaty change would be driven by citizen demand—not from the top.

Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content.


We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Thank you!

Please check your inbox and click on the link in the confirmation email to complete your newsletter subscription.

.

Innovative design

The conference is also unparalleled in its innovative design, methods and scale. It has been devised as the first-ever pan-European public consultation, jointly organised by the EU institutions, a pyramidal structure on three levels:

  • at the bottom, the first-ever transnational platform, open to anyone willing to share ideas or organise or attend an event, will set—through a system moderated by artificial intelligence—the agenda of the next two levels;
  • the first transnational citizens’ panels—composed of randomly selected citizens from all over Europe and different walks of like—are tasked to deliberate inter alia on issues previously defined via the platform;
  • at the top is a plenary of 433 members, including not only members of the European and national parliaments but also citizens from the panels, as well as (few) social-partner representatives—tasked to review, consider and wrap up the proposals, thereby acting as a real ‘constituent’ power. This mix of elected representatives, ordinary citizens and intermediary bodies deliberating jointly is a world first.

An EU-run platform acting as the sole entry point is set to reduce the diversity of voices by self-selection among participants. The citizens’ panels, due to their random selection, may however partly compensate for the limited representativeness of the platform’s input. Much will ultimately depend on the demographics of those citizens who, having been randomly selected, accept serving on the panels. Incentive-based mechanisms, such as daily fees and work permissions, must be considered.

Pro-EU bias might be further offset by the presence of 100+ representatives from the citizens’ panels in the plenary itself,  as well as those representing national panels. The hybrid nature of the plenary, composed of representatives and ordinary citizens, is however limited insofar as citizens are mere participants, not co-decision-makers, when it comes to approval of the proposals to be sent to the political level.

Yet those proposals won’t be decided by unanimity, rather by mere ‘consensus’. This suggests member states might have indirectly—and perhaps unwittingly—relinquished their traditional veto power over institutional reform, by accepting that a wide majority might suffice to let new, perhaps even radical, ideas into the political debate.

In addition, in the absence of clearly defined aims, methods and processes, each level of the conference is set to remain quite free in interpreting its mandate, to adapt to the circumstances. This embedded experimental design is foreign to EU integration hitherto—notably to its institutional design, which has been characterised by some form of control by the member states.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

As such, the conference carries the potential to act as a Trojan horse for new ideas and dynamics within the union. Some ideas and dynamics may actually stick, transcending the eight-month expiry date imposed by the member states on the conference. This might be the first time the EU institutions and the member states have created an institutional mechanism where they might end up not being in control. As evidenced by the attempts by Hungary and Poland (and friendly non-governmental organisations) to hijack the conference, this also implies letting in critical and antagonistic voices to the EU project.

New dynamics

These features alone are a testament to the democratic potential of the conference. Its capacity to prompt institutional reform from the bottom up, its embrace of democratic innovation, its striving for popular representativeness and its experimental design suggest that, regardless of the outcome, the exercise might be conducive to new, genuine and permanent, transnational dynamics.

Still, don’t expect the Conference on the Future of Europe to go down in history as a constitutional moment, driven by millions of citizens populating the platform. That’s why, contrary to conventional wisdom, its success should not be measured against its ability to prompt treaty change. Rather, it should be gauged on whether it can mainstream substantive new policy ideas and institutionalise democratic innovations, such as citizens’ assemblies, at the transnational level, thus sowing the seeds of a genuine EU political space.

For once that genie is out, it will be difficult to put it back in the bottle.

Conference on the Future of Europe
Alberto Alemanno

Alberto Alemanno is the Jean Monnet professor of European Union law at HEC Paris and served as expert and observer to the Conference on the Future Europe, Citizen Panel 2 on ‘European democracy / Values and rights, rule of law, security'.

Home ・ Politics ・ Releasing Europe’s democratic genie

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

Gazprom,Putin,Nordstream,Putin,Schröder How the public loses out when politicians cash inKatharina Pistor
defence,europe,spending Ukraine and Europe’s defence spendingValerio Alfonso Bruno and Adriano Cozzolino
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,NATO,Ukraine The Ukraine war and NATO’s renewed credibilityPaul Rogers
transnational list,European constituency,European elections,European public sphere A European constituency for a European public sphereDomènec Ruiz Devesa
hydrogen,gas,LNG,REPowerEU EU hydrogen targets—a neo-colonial resource grabPascoe Sabido and Chloé Mikolajczak

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube