In order not to restrict debates and allow citizens to raise their own priorities at European level, the Conference on the Future of Europe should not start its work with “a predetermined outcome”, said the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) in a draft opinion adopted on Monday 9 December, in the early evening.
The institutional agreement, which will be sealed at the beginning of January by the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the EU to establish “the concept, structure, timetable and scope” of the conference, should promote an open dialogue making it possible to identify the issues at the heart of citizens’ concerns, according to the compromise amendments submitted to the MEPs and consulted by EUROPE a few hours before the vote was held.
According to MEPs, the conference should be “focused on how to improve the EU’s ability to act by identifying key legal and institutional obstacles that prevent it from doing better and proposing ways to address them”. Among the topics to be addressed should “at least” be European core values, the climate challenge, social justice and economic issues, including taxation, digital transformation, security and the EU’s role in the world.
The AFCO Committee, which underlines its exclusive competence within the European Parliament on European institutional issues, wants citizens, especially young people, to participate actively in the work of the future conference. As such, it is necessary to ensure a representativeness of women citizens that reflects “the diversity of our societies”, it stressed, advocating holding events in all Member States, as well as the use of new technologies to ensure transparency of the work and “intensive” communication. Additional support, provided by civil society, should also be mobilised to enable citizens to prepare themselves in advance.
The conference’s work should produce “tangible” results, which could lead to legislative initiatives or even amendments to the European Treaties.
“Ten years after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, it is time to give European citizens once again the opportunity to debate the future of the Union. MEPs agree that citizens should play a leading role in the conference in order to make the European Union more democratic, more transparent and more effective”, said Daniel Freund (Greens/EFA, German).
It should also be noted that MEPs prefer not to set summer 2020 as the deadline for making concrete proposals to make Europe more democratic, by improving the system of top candidates (‘Spitzenkandidaten’) and considering the creation of transnational lists. They prefer to request that these issues be addressed in time for the 2024 European elections.
In total, some 20 compromise amendments included the 236 amendments tabled by the EPP, S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups.
The AFCO Committee’s position will feed into the ongoing work until Tuesday 17 December in the ad hoc Parliament working party on the Conference on the Future of Europe. Objective: the January adoption of a European Parliament resolution with a view to influencing the drafting of the institutional agreement (see EUROPE 12375/7). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)