The Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs, Ana Paula Zacarias, hopes that the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU, the European Parliament, and the European Commission will be able to unveil, “during this week”, a joint declaration laying the foundations for the Conference on the Future of Europe.
“ We’re in a final phase of negotiations. I hope for a deal on a joint declaration hopefully during this week”, said Zacarias, at the end of the ‘General Affairs’ Council.
The last element hindering the adoption of the joint declaration by the institutional trio concerns the governance of the Conference. It is acknowledged that the Presidency will be held by the Presidents of the European Parliament, the Commission and the leader of the country holding the six-monthly Presidency of the Council of the EU (see EUROPE 12650/22).
The composition of the executive committee, which will be responsible for steering the day-to-day work of this citizens’ consultation exercise, has yet to be decided (see EUROPE 12652/12). According to the EU Council’s revised position, the institutional trio will be able to have up to three representatives each. As all political groups in Parliament are asking to be represented on the Executive Committee, David Sassoli proposed to the Council of the EU that three political groups (EPP, S&D, and Renew Europe) should participate as representatives, with the other four as observers.
Will these four groups, especially the extreme right, accept this solution, or will they criticise a biased exercise from the outset? - wondered a source close to the dossier.
If this obstacle seems to be able to be overcome, the last hurdle concerns the role of Guy Verhofstadt (Renew Europe, Belgium). The chair of the centre-right group, Dacian Cioloș, is insisting on a specific role for the former Belgian Prime Minister, but the EU Council and the Commission are opposed to this.
In a four-page draft declaration that EUROPE has consulted, the presidents of the institutional trio, who will take stock of the work “every six months”, undertake, via a specific mechanism, to “ensure follow up on the recommendations” issued by European citizens who will meet in specific panels. And a plenary session will ensure that these recommendations are debated “without a predetermined outcome”, they add. However, the possibility of an institutional review arising from the work was not made explicit.
A grey area also remains concerning the duration of the work, which was initially planned to last 2 years, whereas France, which launched the initiative, is calling for results as early as the spring of 2022, under the French Presidency of the EU Council.
Presented as a culmination, the adoption of the joint declaration will in fact mark the beginning of a process that could lead to the launch of the Conference on 9 May in Strasbourg, health conditions permitting.
“Once this declaration is agreed, there are still a lot of questions to be answered. What topics will be covered? What is the composition of the plenary?”, asked Daniel Freund (Greens/EFA, Germany). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)