The State of the European Union. The European states facing the reforms of the Union

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THE STATES ON THE FUTURE OF EUROPE
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– Harnessing globalisation.10
– The future of European defence.11
– The future of EU finances.12
On the other, the Commission described its
own vision of the future of Europe in the State
of the Union address that, like every year, its
president gave to the European Parliament.13
Ruling out a reform of the treaties from the
outset, the White paper opened up a period of
reflection and political scenarios for the EU27
around 2025 that the Commission wanted to
see discussed in “states, regions and cities”
throughout the Union between 2017 and
2018, so that the Heads of State and Govern-
ment could, “at a meeting of the European
Council to be held on 30 March 2019, in Sibiu,
Romania, take the first decisions that would de-
scribe the state in which the Union should find
itself in 2025”.14
10COM(2017)240 of 10 May 2017. Available a::
11COM(2017)315 of 7 June 2017. Available at:
12COM(2017)358 of 28 June 2017. Available at:
13Juncker, J. C.: State of the Union Address, 13 September
2017. Available at:
14 Ibidem. We must point out that unlike the explicit
references to this special European Council meeting of
March 2019 both in the State of the Union address of 13
September 2017 (available at:
and in the Tallin Road
Map (see: European Council, Roadmap for a More United,
Stronger and More Democratic Union, Tallin 29 September
2017, available at:
), the
reference does not appear in the so-called Leaders’ Agenda
in its October 2017 version. (See: European Council, Leaders’
Agenda:
). However, that document states: “This
Leaders’ Agenda is a living document that will be updated
and amended as required.”
The debate on the five political scenarios de-
scribed in the White paper15 broke up into mul-
tiple platforms in 2017 and was low-intensity in
civil society (in the sphere of the so-called Citi-
zens’ Dialogues16 ) and in the states (only some
Foreign Ministries gave priority to the debate
and only some national Parliaments included it
on their agendas17). It will actually be in 2018
when civil society participation will have the
chance to move up a gear.
Always without amending the Treaties, the
states constructed a practical agenda of ad hoc
and incremental decisions in 2017, rather than
a debate.
The European Council, then, had one single
discussion on the five scenarios in the Commis-
sion’s White paper at the informal meeting in
Brussels on 10 March 2017. At the end of the
meeting, European Council president Donald
Tusk summed up the results of the discussion as
follows: “As you know, today the EU27 met
ahead of the 60 th anniversary of the Treaty of
Rome. We had an honest and constructive dis-
cussion about our common future, which fo-
cused on what should be the main elements of
the Rome Declaration. It is clear from the de-
bate that the unity of the 27 will be our most
precious asset. Our last meeting in Malta, sub-
sequent statements by some Member States
and the European Commission’s White paper
leave us in no doubt that the idea of a multi-
15See the description of the five scenarios in: European
Commission: White Paper on the Future of Europe, 2017.
Available at:
page 29.
16See:
17See, by the way, Kreilinger, Valentin: “A more
democratic European Union. Propositions and scope
for political action”, op. cit ., page 20. Available at: