© REUTERS/Kevin Coombs

The Conference on the Future of Europe was supposed to kick off on Europe Day on May 9, 2020. It was French President Emmanuel Macron who first floated the idea to organize a conference to sketch out EU reform. Ursula von der Leyen picked up on this endeavor, in a move to appease a European Parliament critical of her nomination as Commission President. In her opening statement to the MEPs, she called for a “new push for democracy” and confirmed that the European institutions would organize the conference.

Recently, however, Dubravka Šuica, the European Commission Vice-President in charge of organizing the conference, announced in an interview with the Financial Times that the formal launch might be postponed at least until September due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is understandable. For practical reasons it is difficult to imagine how such a two-year reflection process with comprehensive citizen involvement would work in times of social distancing and confinement measures. And European leaders’ political attention is currently rightly focused on managing the immediate crisis.

Open Process

Either way, beyond the kick-off date and the general commitment from all three institutions, it is still unclear what the conference will look like. Before the EU switched into crisis management mode in March, the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the member states had not been able to agree on the composition, process structure, and mandate of the conference. The European Parliament was the first institution to set out its ideas for the conference, backing a rather ambitious resolution which “commits itself to a genuine follow-up of the conference with legislative proposals and possibly treaty change.”

The proposal foresees a Conference Plenary with representatives of the European Parliament and national parliaments, Council ministers, Commission Vice-Presidents, and representatives of other EU institutions, bodies, and social partners meeting on a regular basis. In parallel, citizens from all member states would gather regularly in several Citizens’ Agoras in different cities around Europe. At least two Youth Agoras are planned, too, whose members would be invited to present their findings at the Conference Plenary. A Steering Committee and an Executive Board would ensure a smooth functioning of the Conference.

The Commission’s response was relatively timid. It did not go into the same detail regarding the EU’s governance structure, nor did it refer to the possibility of institutional reform. Since then, all eyes have been on the European Council, where member states have so far shown little enthusiasm to push the Conference forward and have not even formulated a common position.

Thus, there are more questions than answers. To what extent will European citizens really be able to co-create the process throughout the duration of Conference? How often will the Conference reach out to stakeholders on the local, regional, and national level to allow for the widest possible participation and inclusion of views? How will the outcome of the Conference be translated into concrete policy proposals including legislative initiatives? Will treaty changes be an option?

The fact that the interinstitutional bargaining to define the conference’s approach and scope has not even taken place yet has lowered expectations significantly in the past months—despite initial excitement and push from the European Parliament to get the ball rolling. Even before the COVID-19 crisis management absorbed all attention, the focus had diverted from the debate on the Conference to other pressing issues such as the European Green Deal and the Greek-Turkish border crisis. Even in the Brussels bubble, where interest in such exercises is usually much higher than in the member states, it was no longer a top priority on the political agenda.

New Impulses Needed

In principal, the Conference on the Future of Europe has great potential. It can serve as an important new impulse to European democracy and bring the EU closer to its citizens, while at the same time also aiming to make progress with respect to the implementation of the EU’s key policy priorities. Yet its mandate and objectives must be made clear. Otherwise, the good intentions will backfire, eroding citizens’ trust in such exercises and more generally in the EU. There have already been enough fruitless ad-hoc or on-again-off-again participatory processes, pretending to give European citizens a say in the debate on the future of Europe. This time, the European institutions should get it right. Proper preparation is key.

Now that the formal launch has been postponed, the unexpected timeout should be used to prepare the ground for what would otherwise have likely become a “going through the motions” exercise. The far-reaching economic, social, and political consequences of the COVID-19 crisis for the EU will make the conference even more pressing.

Lockdown measures throughout Europe have already led to a sharp spike of unemployment; a deep recession looms. Cross-border solidarity has been once again severely tested as the countries most affected by the health crisis initially could not count on the support of their European partners, who instead turned inward and closed their borders. In the eyes of too many citizens, the EU played too small a role, particularly when coordinating the necessary restrictive measures and distributing medical equipment. Old conflicts between the North and the South have resurfaced, with even more intensity and emotion. And in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has abused the COVID-19 crisis to undermine democracy, further strengthening his autocratic rule.

Push the Member States

The public health crisis has revealed the limitations of the EU’s capacity to act and has challenged the concept of European solidarity. At the same time, it has laid bare the already existing institutional shortcomings. The Conference on the Future of Europe will not only be an opportunity to jointly assess the EU’s crisis management and come to terms with the initial lack of European action as well as the reflex for national solutions. It will also allow to explore what should really be at the core of the EU, and which public goods it should deliver to European citizens. At the same time, it can serve as an important instrument to channel citizens’ feedback and to distill necessary reforms in order to strengthen the EU’s cohesion and capacity to act—on institutional reform as well as on political substance.

The first task is to ensure that the conference will take place at all. The delay could tempt member states to scrap it entirely from the political agenda. Most of them had been rather skeptical from the beginning anyway, having expressed doubts about how effective the exercise might be and fearing it could open the door to talk of changing the EU’s treaties. As member states will have to fight the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic in the coming months, they might completely lose their appetite to engage in such an exercise.

Therefore, the European Parliament as well as civil society organizations across Europe should push the member states to ensure that the latter stick to their commitment of launching the conference once confinement and social-distancing measures are lifted. With its recent resolution on the subject, the European Parliament has already sent a gentle reminder for it to be convened as soon as possible. And the signs are encouraging: a group of five ministers of EU affairs from Austria, Ireland, Greece, Bulgaria, and Belgium followed the Parliament urging their colleagues to commit to the conference.

Furthermore, the Parliament and the Commission should find common ground for an ambitious mandate and process to be discussed with the member states in order for the conference to be ready in time. The upcoming German EU presidency could provide an important impulse to broker an agreement between member states and steer the way toward an interinstitutional agreement. Any compromise should address the following two aspects:

Strategic Priorities

First, the participatory dimension of the conference should build on similar experiences in the past, such as the European Citizens’ Consultations that took place last year. In fact, there is a long history of efforts by the European institutions aiming to better connect citizens with the EU, which offer valuable lessons that should be taken into consideration. Experiences from democratic innovations at the local, regional, and national level across Europe should also be harvested, such as the Irish citizens’ Constitutional Convention or the Ostbelgien Citizens’ Council in the German-speaking community in eastern Belgium. Success requires clarity and clear communication of the ultimate goal of the Conference in order to manage expectations, to enable citizen involvement at both the national and transnational level, and ideally a long-term participatory process that establishes a regular communication channel between citizens, civil society, and elected representatives that goes beyond a one-off exercise.

At the same time, all stakeholders should be aware of the risks that come with organizing such a participatory endeavor: euroskeptics will be keen to push forward their own agenda calling for returning competences back to the national level. Thus, pro-integrationists should be prepared to have a convincing communication strategy throughout all phases of the conference to counter misinformation and to deliver credible responses when being confronted with dissent regarding the European project.

Second, the point of departure should be an evaluation of the main consequences of the COVID-19 crisis for the EU and its member states. However, reducing the Conference to the health crisis debate would be shortsighted. It should also concentrate on strategic priorities such as the green transition, the digital agenda, the EU’s role in the world, and democracy and governance, based on the EU Strategic Agenda 2019-2024 defined by the European Council and the von der Leyen Commission. In addition, as the EU focuses solely on fighting the pandemic and its consequences, and certain policy fields face deadlock due to longstanding conflicts, the Conference could serve as an important tool to keep reform debates alive.

Debating the EU’s strategic priorities will also reveal the necessity of institutional reform, for instance the introduction of qualified majority voting in specific policy fields. Also, other roadblocks such as electoral reform or the Spitzenkandidaten process will need to be addressed. Thus, all institutions should clearly commit themselves to deliver concrete financial, legal, institutional, and policy reforms, and—if necessary—even treaty change.

In every crisis, there is an opportunity. Postponing the launch of the Conference buys time. In a post-COVID-19 period, the need for a comprehensive European soul-searching exercise will be greater than ever. European institutions should not waste the opportunity.

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© REUTERS/Ludovic Marin/Pool

It might be one of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s greatest challenges yet. After nearly two months of wrangling, her conservatives still have not yet managed to form a coalition government with the Greens and Free Democrats. It is a tricky marriage indeed: the three parties remain miles apart on fundamental issues like climate policy, immigration, and eurozone reforms.

Yet Berlin can hardly afford to waste any more time. Governments across Europe are looking to Germany to take charge on a host of pressing internal and foreign policy issues, but also to lead the push to reshape the EU itself. One man in particular is watching closely to see what emerges from Berlin’s contentious coalition talks. Just two days after the German elections, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a sweeping speech at the Sorbonne where he fundamentally raised the stakes in the EU reform debate.

In an almost one-hundred-minute long speech, Macron laid out a comprehensive and ambitious vision for a new Europe, underlined by a strong emphasis on institutional innovation. In the field of security and defense for example, Macron pitched for a common intervention force, which – at least in principle – is a more ambitious version of the already existing but never used EU battle groups. On domestic security, he called for boosting the responsibilities of the newly established European Public Prosecutor’s Office and for establishing a European Intelligence Academy that would foster closer cooperation among member states’ intelligence services. On migration and asylum, he repeated the Commission’s proposal to create a European Asylum Office and suggested the gradual establishment of a European border police force.

No Revolution

The timing and vast scope of Macron’s speech garnered much attention: His drive and ambition come at a time when the EU seems to be looking more optimistically to the future. But his proposals are far from revolutionary; in fact, most of them have been on the table for a long time. However, Macron’s European drive and ambition have given those ideas new visibility – rearranged, bundled, and well-timed at a moment when the EU seems to be looking more optimistically into the future.

Despite being concrete and assertive about most of his proposals, Macron was careful not to draw red lines for the French position to avoid overpromising with his reform agenda or overburdening his European partners with too much too soon. Indeed, he depicted his vision for change as a plan that needs further debate, leaving enough room for maneuver in future negotiations.

On the most contentious issue – the strengthening of the eurozone – Macron climbed down from his initial, ambitious plan. Keenly aware that the coalition-building process in Germany could be complex and protracted, Macron constrained himself to attributing only a small part of his speech to eurozone governance. He repeated the need for a sizeable common eurozone budget but avoided any concrete figures, and suggested a particularly generous timetable for implementation that would allow eurozone members critical of his proposals ample time to work through their disagreements.

This strategy could help avoid conflict with a future German government. Macron recognizes the importance of Paris and Berlin jointly leading the EU reform agenda, and Berlin’s endorsement of his overall approach to reforming the European project in the long run is more significant to him than his eurozone reform plans in the short term. Indeed, Macron consulted Chancellor Merkel twice in the process of drafting his speech.

Discouraging Signals

But will it help? The French president has already been forced to postpone his initial plan. Now, as German coalition talks have ground to a halt, Macron is condemned to wait for a German response, and the signals he has received along the way have not been particularly encouraging. While Chancellor Merkel welcomed Macron’s proposals as a “good impetus” and the Greens’ leader Cem Özdemir urged taking “Macron’s outstretched hand,” the liberal FDP and the more conservative wing of Merkel’s CDU/CSU have been lukewarm at best. There is strong resistance to any kind of common eurozone budget, a banking union, or the establishment of a European Monetary Fund. That does not leave much scope for changing the status quo on eurozone politics.

Still, there is overlap on defense and security, corporate tax alignment, and a common asylum policy. An agreement in these fields could be packaged together with more contentious issues to at least push things forward. This, however, would presuppose the formation of a stable government and a coalition agreement vague enough to leave space for negotiations between Paris and Berlin – a lengthy and tedious process in itself.

Even if a German response comes soon and Paris and Berlin are able to get their rusty tandem back on the road by developing a series of reform measures, discontent may grow among other member states and hamper urgently needed consensus on reform. Thus, openness to other European heavyweights eager to shape the EU reform agenda, particularly Italy and Spain, will be key.

Advancing or Preserving?

The largest stumbling block will be the idea of deeper integration, or moving toward a more political union in general. Macron champions the concept of differentiated integration, a “multispeed EU” in which a small group of member states moves ahead on issues where closer cooperation triggers a strong backlash. But Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague, in particular, are not interested in cementing their positions outside the inner circle of EU decision-making – especially as the position on the margins has been weakened considerably with the British vote to leave the EU. At the same time, the appetite to deepen EU integration among member states like the Netherlands or Austria might also be waning after recent election results.

Against this backdrop, and with Brexit negotiations sputtering, it is no wonder that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s overriding concern is preserving the unity of the EU’s remaining 27 member states. Chancellor Merkel, too, has made it a priority to prevent the rift between core and periphery from deepening further. That only leaves room for functional and pragmatic forms of differentiated integration, like the flexible cooperation we have seen in security and defense.

President Macron has tried to push the EU reform debate squarely into the spotlight and spur his European partners to act; by making EU reform the central project of his presidency, he is taking a significant political risk at home. His proposals are concrete and serious, yet the response across the bloc has been largely skeptical. It is not surprising to see criticism from Central European countries, but Macron may well have been hoping for a warmer reception in Berlin.

Yet Germany, mired in intricate coalition negotiations, might be too paralyzed to act at a time when a rare window of opportunity to reform the European project seems to have opened. Nevertheless, in Macron’s rich menu of proposals it is at least likely that EU partners will find some aspects to pick up, even if the drive to reform is off to a slow start.

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© REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

Italy is in crisis. For a country that has seen more than 40 governments since the end of World War II, that may be not an entirely unusual state of affairs. But ever since Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s big gamble failed when he lost a referendum on constitutional reform on December 4 with a 40-60 margin and resigned, questions about the eurozone’s third largest, if sluggish, economy and its brewing banking sector crisis have returned with a vengeance. The “no” vote has also created a vacuum within yet another influential EU member states. With upcoming elections in the Netherlands, France, and Germany, the EU already had limited capacity to act in 2017 – now Italy has added itself to the list.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella acted swiftly. He entrusted Renzi’s foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni with forming a caretaker government, which will use the existing center-left coalition in the parliament and lead the country until the next elections – at the latest in February 2018, but very likely sooner. The populist Five Star Movement and the right-wing Lega Nord (Northern League) have already called for snap elections – the former hoping to take advantage of Renzi’s crushing defeat and Italians’ general anger with the political class, as the party is polling head-to-head with Renzi’s Democratic Party. The latter also seems to favor a quick return to the ballot box. As a “political animal,” Renzi has not yet lost his appetite for the game: he we will quickly push for a new political mandate.

Still, Italy’s fellow eurozone member states seem to have undervalued the risks political uncertainty poses for the stability of the common currency. Frequent calls to reform the eurozone’s structure have been followed by little in the way in action; thus, the euro remains vulnerable to turbulence in the financial markets. It is true that the markets seemed to have expected a “no” in the constitutional referendum and have shrugged of the vote for the most part; however, a faltering economy, the second highest public debt ratio in the EU (at 133 percent of GDP), and the troubled banking sector point to big danger ahead, irrespective of who wins the next elections.

Key Problem: Italy’s Banks

The Italian banks constitute a key problem, as their bad loans amount to circa €360 billion in total. Italy’s third largest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, is the biggest worry. Last summer the bank failed in a Europe-wide stress test undertaken by the European Central Bank, and is now obliged to address its capital gap. By the end of the year, the bank is required to increase its capital by raising up to €5 billion. After the referendum, the bank submitted a request for more time, which the ECB rejected – signaling that the financial environment is deteriorating. If this process fails due to political uncertainty, there is a risk the bank could collapse, which would undermine confidence in other Italian and European banks. The interim government would be forced to either step in and bail out Monte dei Paschi, which would mean involving the 60,000 bank savers in restructuring its costs, or asking the eurozone for help. The winner would be the Five Star Movement and other populist, anti-EU forces – either because of the loss of the savings of thousands of Italians, or because of the strict conditionality that would accompany a European rescue package.

An Italian banking crisis would confront the EU with a two-fold problem: First, a controversial theme would be back on the agenda. In the Dutch, French, and German elections, it would be difficult to convince these electorates of the necessity of saving Italian banks. Second, it is far from certain that the eurozone could maintain strict conditionality in the case of a member state as central as Italy.

Meanwhile, the debate on the legitimacy of the Italian electoral law, the so-called Italicum, is a decisive factor determining when the next elections will be held. At the moment, Italy has no single electoral law governing both chambers; the one in place was designed assuming a “yes” in the referendum and thus only applies to the lower house of parliament. The ruling by the constitutional court is pending and not expected before early 2017, but it will likely reject the current law, in which case the Gentiloni government will have to sketch out a new electoral law first and win parliamentary allies to get it passed – probably Forza Italia, the center-right party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. It will likely result in a more proportional representation system (until the proposed reforms, the system gave bigger parties an edge). This would then likely reduce the chances that the Five Star Movement, which openly flirts with a referendum on euro membership, would come to power.

But as the heated atmosphere during the referendum campaign has shown, arriving at this point will prove tricky – and possibly unreachable should Italy’s banks go under while Italy’s policy-makers quibble.

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© REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

Tonight, France and Romania will kick off the 2016 UEFA European Championship at Stade de France in Paris. A new emotional roller coaster will begin for millions of Europeans hoping to eat, drink, and breath soccer – or football, as non-Americans call it – for four weeks. Football grouches will have a hard time escaping discussions about the tournament’s title favorites and the likely line-up of the next match, as well as the condition of Cristiano Ronaldo’s six-pack and Zlatan Ibrahimović’s latest tweets.

Still, it is difficult to imagine that Europeans will be able to fully enjoy this distraction from the crisis mode that has overwhelmed the EU and its member states for the past six years. The next couple of weeks will be too tricky and challenging politically to allow enough breathing space for both policy makers and citizens to simply enjoy “the beautiful game.”

First, Britain’s decision on June 23 to leave or stay in the EU will significantly impact how the EU will look in the future – no matter the outcome of the referendum. Second, only three days later on June 26, Spain’s choice to either get behind the protest vote or reconnect with the parties that ruled the country since the demise of the fascist Franco dictatorship in 1975 could lead to even more discord between member states. Finally, the EU’s refugee crisis will not end unless member states agree to a lasting solution based on European solidarity – despite the disputable EU-Turkey agreement.

Since the first tournament in 1960, the European Championship has become a stock-taking exercise on the continent’s ever-changing (geo)political status and zeitgeist. The EURO 2016 will be no different, reflecting the dramatic changes Europe underwent since the last tournament four years ago in Poland and Ukraine. Back then, Spain’s road to their second consecutive championship led them twice to Donbass Stadium in Donetsk; less than two years later, Donetsk had turned into a theater of war with Ukrainian armed forces and pro-Russian separatists clashing for control of the town and region.

While both Ukraine and Russia will participate in this year’s tournament, Russia’s annexation of the Crimea seems irreversible, most of Eastern Ukraine is frozen in conflict, and the EU and Russia have sanctioned each other. Football is not spared from this upheaval: Ukraine initially did not select players currently signed by Russian clubs, leading to heated debates about alleged politically motivated nominations. Both teams might meet in round 16, which could provoke a politically explosive situation.

Traumatized Hosts

Security will be the most visible aspect for football fans heading to France. France is still traumatized by the terror attacks in November 2015, when suicide bombers targeted a friendly match between France and Germany at Stade de France. Authorities are worried about the European Championship being a potential target for terrorists. European football fans will feel slightly queasy while chanting their songs in the French streets and simultaneously being watched by security forces and guarded by armed soldiers. They will face tight security restrictions at fan festivals, in and outside of the stadiums, and in airports, train stations, and metro stops, testing their patience to the limit. But this is Europe in 2016: a continent in constant fear of the next terrorist attack.

Contemporary Europe’s most worrisome feature, which will be present at this year’s EURO, is the return of identity politics and the debate over a multicultural Europe stirred by right-winged parties across the continent. Football itself has always had a tremendous integrative power. When the glorious Équipe Tricolore, the French national team, won the World Cup at home in 1998, players like Zinedine Zidane, Patrick Vieira, Lilian Thuram, and Christian Karembeu embodied the ethnic diversity of France. Their achievement was praised as an example of the modern multicultural French ideal and the success of the “French model” of social integration.

However, this national celebration of diversity was short-lived. Four years after their victory, the far-right National Front presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen finished second in the national elections. (His daughter Marine Le Pen will try to better papa in 2017.) And last year’s terrorist attacks have once again sparked a dangerous integration debate in France, which risks making a simplistic connection between feelings of insecurity and issues of ethnicity, religion, and inequality.

In Germany, the anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has tried to exploit the discontent with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policies. One AfD leader criticized the diverse ethnic backgrounds of the German players and argued that the Mannschaft “is no longer German.” And “Germans,” AfD deputy chair Alexander Gauland claimed, would not like to have someone like star-player Jérôme Boateng – who was born in Berlin to a Ghanaian father and a German mother – as a neighbor. Other AfD members criticized German midfielder Mesut Özil, a third-generation Turkish-German, for posting a selfie on Facebook from his pilgrimage to Mecca, calling it an “anti-patriotic signal.”

These examples highlight how toxic and explosive the debate surrounding integration and migration has become in Europe, and how easily football – a mirror of society – can be hijacked by right-wing demagogues. But even in times of serious division, Europe has always managed to reconnect through football – perhaps most famously on Christmas in 1914 during World War I, when British and German soldiers climbed out of their trenches for a match in no-man’s land. A hundred years on, the continent’s favorite pastime still succeeds in bringing together people from all nationalities and backgrounds – some hope in troubled times.

NB. A longer version of this article first appeared on the Reconnecting Europe blog, published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation European Union.

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