Hurrah for the conference on the future of Europe! by Camino Mortera-Martinez
If done right, the conference on the future of Europe can help bring about meaningful reform in the EU – even if that means changing the treaties. At first sight, the conference on the future of Europe, an EU-wide consultation lasting nearly a year, may not seem the most straightforward way to generate change and boost democracy. In fact, with three presidents and a complex governing structure made up of over 400 people, the conference may not seem the most straightforward way of doing anything at all. Many think that is the point of the exercise. And yet, with a few tweaks, the conference could end up challenging everybody’s exceedingly low expectations – and become the first step towards much needed reform in the Union.
©European Union
The conference’s main, and most overlooked, problem is timing. It should have started at the beginning of 2020 and finished in spring 2022. But the COVID-19 pandemic intruded and the start of the exercise had to be delayed. French President Emmanuel Macron, who is behind the idea, wants to have the whole thing wrapped up by March 2022, in the middle of France’s rotating EU presidency. Macron himself faces re-election at home in April and hopes that the conference can help to amplify some of his ideas on how to make the EU work better. This means that the conference will be shorter, and also that it will mostly happen online because of COVID-19 restrictions.
The conference’s main strength should be as a platform for citizens who may otherwise remain unheard. A mostly digital conference may boost the participation of digital natives and people generally used to interacting through a screen. But it will discriminate against less digitally able people, like the elderly, and against those living in rural or remote areas with shaky internet connections. A predominantly digital format also makes it hard to engage with local civil society groups who may raise issues that are important to many people, and who already normally struggle to get a hearing in Brussels. Aware of this bias, the Commission has hired a private company to randomly select 108 citizens who will represent the voice of ordinary people. But that alone will not be enough to ensure the conference reaches out beyond urban, educated elites – there is no explanation of what criteria will be used to choose these people and what incentives will they have to participate. One way to solve this problem would be to make the conference a rolling exercise. The EU institutions could commit to hold citizen consultations on a regular basis and to filter and review proposals every two or three years. This would not require expensive consultants, complicated bureaucracy or eminent experts.