Future of Europe: European Parliament’s vision

It is possible to find overviews in Reader’s Digest style of the most notable Future of Europe initiatives.

The annotated version of president Jean-Claude Juncker’s State of the Union 2017 address, with the sub-heading Proposals for the future of Europe that can be implemented on the basis of the Lisbon Treaty, demonstrates how the flexibilities of the EU treaties can be used to improve the effectiveness of European Union action, without embarking on a formal process of treaty reform.

European Parliament and Juncker proposals

Already at headline level we notice a high degree of similarity with one of the EU reform resolutions from the European Parliament:

European Parliament resolution P8_TA(2017)0049 of 16 February 2017 on improving the functioning of the European Union building on the potential of the Lisbon Treaty (2014/2249(INI)) [rapporteurs Elmar Brok and Mercedes Bresso]

The European Parliament Think Tank did a bit more, by comparing Juncker’s SOTEU proposals with the resolution by the EP plenary. For our purposes it is enough to recall the general drift of the document The European Council and the 2017 State of the Union proposals, which describes Juncker’s vision for a more united, stronger and more democratic Europe:

His vision consists of five proposals which would require a decision by the European Council, as well as one suggestion which would directly impact on the composition and working methods of this EU institution. The five proposals are: 1) using the general passerelle clause to shift from unanimity to qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council on remaining internal market issues and aspects of taxation policy; 2) moving to QMV in the field of Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP); 3) setting up a European Defence Union; 4) extending the competences of the European Public Prosecutor's Office; 5) agreeing on a new composition for the European Parliament, including transnational lists. The additional suggestion is to merge the positions of President of the European Council and European Commission.

In principle, all proposed initiatives could be carried out without a Treaty change. The Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) include a series of clauses enabling the European Council to go beyond the current status quo. In three cases, the European Council would need the consent of the European Parliament before taking its decision. A comparison between President Juncker's proposals and the views of the European Parliament indicates that their opinions overlap regarding four of the ideas, while on one of them, discussions in the Parliament are still ongoing (see Table 1 below).

In each case, the Juncker proposal, the treaty basis and the European Parliament view are presented.

Since the directly elected European Parliament represents the citizens of the union, and the European Commission promotes the general interest of the EU, their views are often similar.

Juncker and Macron

The in-house think tank of the European Commission, the European Political Strategy Centre EPSC, published a Juncker-Macron comparison available in English, French and German: Two Visions, One Direction: Plans for the future of Europe as laid out in President Juncker’s State of the Union and President Macron’s Initiative for Europe.

The summary of this comparative assessment is telling (page 2):

Out of the proposals put forward by President Macron in his speech of 27 September, about 80% are already proposed or foreseen in the European Commission’s work programme, as outlined on 13 September in President Juncker’s Letter of Intent to European Parliament President Antonio Tajani and to Estonian Prime Minister Jüri Ratas.

Naturally, each proposal is compared and commented on.

European Parliament vision

The EP has presented its view on the need for EU reform in the publication Future of Europe: European Parliament sets out its vision.

President Antonio Tajani states the view of the European Parliament (page 1):

If the EU is to be more responsive to citizens’ expectations and democratically accountable, it must first boost its capacity to act and make the euro zone more resilient to economic shocks, whilst making full use of the Lisbon Treaty. But to go further, it needs to reform itself more substantially.

The views of the European Parliament in various policy areas are at the centre, but these opinions are compared with the proposals from Juncker and Macron.

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I have not yet found other language versions of the publication about the EP’s vision on the future of Europe, but maybe one of my queries will receive a response.

Ralf Grahn

European Council: Leaders’ Agenda

The blog post European Council: United we’re stuck? noted the effort of the EUCO president Donald Tusk to cut the Gordian knots among the heads of state or government (and more generally the governments of the member states), by a structured approach to difficult issues. At the same time, the entry doubted if a schedule for thematic meetings would be more successful now than at the time of Herman Van Rompuy. What if sub-optimal procedures and outcomes for EU citizens and enterprises are inevitable consequences of a basically intergovernmental union the member states have designed to suit themselves?

Do we find anything to add to our knowledge about the Leaders’ Agenda after the EUCO meeting?

The customary introductory speech by the president of the European Parliament touched on a number of issues. On the future of Europe Antonio Tajani reminded the national leaders:

Europe is thinking hard about its own future. We have to find answers to two fundamental questions: what it is that we want to do together in the future, and how we want to do it.

As you will remember, Parliament was the first to contribute to this reflection process, through the Brok-Bresso, Böge-Bérès and Verhofstadt reports.

President Juncker has presented the Commission White Paper setting out the possible scenarios and, more recently, President Macron put on the table a range of ideas and proposals that warrant in-depth consideration.

Parliament, as a democratic and open forum for debate, aims – and has the institutional duty – to be at the centre of the debate.

That is why the Conference of Presidents has decided to devote a series of  debates in plenary to the future of Europe, and to invite the Heads of State and Government and leading European figures who wish to speak to outline their vision and debate with us.

I have already extended that invitation to some of you in person, and will be sending everyone a written invitation in the next few days.

We have noted that one of the items on the Leaders’ Agenda concerns the Spitzenkandidaten. I am sure that your aim is to make that arrangement the norm.

Thank you for listening. I look forward to your coming to Parliament to talk about Europe.

 

The European Council informs us that the Leaders’ Agenda was endorsed. During the coming two years, the national leaders are going to deal with the most contentious issues, such as the Eurozone reform, migration crisis, internal security, trade and the future financing of the EU, according to Tusk.

Tusk’s added remarks on the Leaders’ Agenda described the new work method as somewhat more direct and more informal than normally. Naturally, he expressed his satisfaction that the leaders are going to work united, hand-in-hand, with all the member states aboard.

According to the EUCO meeting page, the leaders met informally to endorse the Leaders’ Agenda, “a concrete work programme to guide EU’s action in the future”. This seems to explain why there is nothing in the European Council conclusions, but we have Tusk’s remarks (above), plus the downloadable Bratislava implementation report and Leaders’ agenda, as well as the description in the EUCO invitation letter,  mentioned in the previous blog entry.

In light of the video recordings of the joint press conference of Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, Tusk repeated his written statement on the Leaders’ Agenda verbatim, but there is no indication that the journalists showed any interest.

The European Council has offered an initial response to the Future of Europe debate, with EU reform calls from the European Parliament, the European Commission, the French president Emmanuel Macron, think tanks, civil society organisations and individual EU citizens.

Will anything come out to the EUCO timetable? - The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Ralf Grahn