The euro-zone crisis has provided a strong new impetus for European integration, but that now risks being undermined amid increasing tension over how best to meet the many complex financial, economic, political, social and global challenges we face.
Efforts to overcome the current malaise are being hampered by profound disagreements over the future course of reforms; mounting socio-economic problems and political instability in many EU countries; different interpretations of the causes and consequences of the crisis; growing Euroscepticism and an increasing reluctance among both citizens and elites to further pool sovereignty at European level. And while the EU is preoccupied with itself, Europe keeps on losing ground as the global shift continues.
The New Pact for Europe project was launched by the King Baudouin Foundation (Belgium) and is supported by a large transnational consortium. This project aims to promote a Europe-wide debate on reform proposals addressing three fundamental questions which need to be answered to develop an effective response to the multi-dimensional crisis Europeans are facing:
- What is at stake if ‘Europe’ cannot tackle the various challenges we face? (‘What do we need the EU for?’)
- What kind of collaboration is needed at European level to respond to the crisis? (‘What needs to be done?’)
- How can the answers to these two questions be translated into action to make the EU more effective and to command broader-based public support? (‘How should it be done?’)
A Reflection Group and an Advisory Group provides input to, and inspiration for, the elaboration of a New Pact between policy-makers and European citizens and between Member States:
The Reflection Group includes top opinion-makers from different EU Member States, who have a genuine interest in the success of European integration, are realistic and pragmatic but at the same time able to think ‘out of the box’, and ready and able to communicate through the media.
The Advisory Group brings together high-ranking policy-makers, academics, NGO representatives and other stakeholders – a mixture of past and current national and European leaders from different sectors and backgrounds.
Strategic Options for Europe’s Future
The euro crisis has prompted one of the most intense debates about the viability of the European project in its history, but many of the contributions to that debate have amounted to little more than immediate crisis management.
But the European Union is facing financial, economic, political and social challenges in a globalized world going far beyond the current crisis and what we need now is a much more ambitious debate in and between Member States and their citizens, which is inspired by fresh thinking and new ideas about how to shape the future EU. We need a new ‘pact’ for Europe – between its Member States, and between policy-makers and the public – not only to heal the wounds of the crisis but to deliver effective responses to these different challenges, and to foster the EU’s clout in international affairs.
What is the New Pact for Europe initiative?
A consortium of eleven European foundations initiated by the King Baudouin Foundation and Bertelsmann Stiftung decided in 2012 to launch a project to promote a Europe-wide reform debate involving the public, politicians, policy-makers, business leaders, trade unionists, EU experts, opinion-formers, and other civil society representatives in many Member States. The ultimate goal is to develop realistic reform proposals to shore up an EU suffering from socio-economic and political turbulence and the growing threat of global marginalisation, and feed these ideas into the work of the new EU leadership which will take office after the May 2014 European elections.
Why this report?
This report marks a first major step in the project by delivering an input for that debate, which will be launched in November 2013. In the run-up to the launch of this public debate, a ‘Reflection Group’ of EU experts from different Member States have been analysing the current ‘state of the Union’ and the myriad of challenges facing Europe, and developed and discussed five strategic options for tackling them. Their work and discussions, which are reflected in this report compiled by Janis A. Emmanouilidis (rapporteur and member of the Reflection Group), have been
enriched by input from an Advisory Group made up of prominent Europeans from the worlds of politics, business, academia, and civil society.
What are the next steps?
The report deliberately comes to no conclusions and makes no concrete policy proposals, because it is simply designed to foster an open debate about possible options for the future development of the European Union. It will be discussed between December 2013-April 2014 by citizens, politicians, policy-makers and key stakeholders in about 50 public events in many EU countries to generate ideas for future action. After that, the Reflection Group will draw on the outcome of these debates to draft a proposal for a New Pact for Europe, including concrete recommendations, with additional input from the Advisory Council to further enrich their work.
Obviously, not all the ideas that make their way into the pact will be taken up by policy-makers, but it will hopefully provide a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate over how to introduce workable, realistic reforms to make the EU more effective in responding to the challenges we face.
The timing of this initiative is crucial: by the end of the consultation process and the drafting of proposals for change, the new European Parliament and new leadership in the European Commission, European Council and European External Action Service will be in the process of being installed, with a huge responsibility to ensure that the European Union of the future is able to tackle key challenges.
We hope that this report will make a valuable contribution to inspire and kick-start a debate in and across Member States – a debate which Europe so urgently needs at this point in time.
Last but not least, we would like to express our gratitude to Janis A. Emmanouilidis, Paul Ivan and Corina Stratulat from the European Policy Centre, Jacki Davis as well as the members of the Reflection Group and Advisory Group who made this report possible. Many thanks go also to Maria João Rodrigues for her valuable contribution to the conceptualisation and implementation of the project.
For more information about the objectives, structure and state of affairs of the
project see: www.newpactforeurope.eu
King Baudouin Foundation and Bertelsmann Stiftung
Brussels, November 2
The publication can be downloaded free of charge from www.kbs-frb.be, www.epc.eu and www.newpactforeurope.eu
