THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION REPORT. Europe in a period of transition

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 10 project, one in which agreement – both in goals and methods – is so important, in a community of almost 500 million people. Any plan that is based on these principles must be ambitious and must aspire to adopt political decisions, at the European level, that are transformative in nature. In this report we focus on three vital areas: the institutional, the social and the economic. The EU must strengthen its capacity for joint action to support the public policies em- anating from Brussels, including in foreign policy and defence. The exit fromAfghanistan has highlighted concern at the need for strategic autonomy, something that Europe still lacks, despite the powerful formulation contained in the Mogherini document. 2022 will be a year of major events, with the European defence summit announced by Von der Leyen and the meeting on 29 and 30 June in Madrid to approve NATO’s next strategic concept. The Conference on the Future of Europe, to which we dedicate several chapters of this report, provides a major opportunity to propose the institutional reform required by the Europe of the 21st century if it is to respond to the challenges identified above. The conference must not disappoint the wishes and expectations of Europe’s citizens for an increased unity that is compatible with the diversity of our continent. The conference is, also, an opportunity to address one of the issues that most divides the Member States of the EU: the absence of a common asylum and refugee policy, and the lack of a shared vision of a problem that has a far greater impact on Mediterranean countries than on those of central and northern Europe. This is one of the EU’s major unresolved social questions. The EU continues to lack a social pillar, an issue it has avoided tackling since its creation more than 60 years ago. But the welfare state, the jewel in the crown, can no longer be maintained and extended on a purely national basis. This is something we have said in all of our reports on the state of the European Union. We must create a European minimum salary, pension and unemployment benefit, but without weakening the social protection that exists at the national level. A social Europe does not stop there. COVID-19 has revealed all too clearly the absence of a European health policy. The Commission’s joint purchase of vaccines demonstrated the efficiency of an authentically European health policy, underlining the importance of the principle of solidarity. Nobody can deny that, after the economic crisis of 2008 to 2013, and again in 2020, the EU’s intervention in the recovery, transformation and resilience of its economy is absolutely vital. As a result, the EU has approved huge funds (750 billion euros) for the next six years, which particularly favour those countries hardest hit by the pandemic (Italy, Spain). However, the rapid growth of debt – in stark contrast to the disastrous austerity of the EU’s response to the 2010-2013 crisis – raises the question of how this will be repaid, a question that applies both to European and to national debt. In addition to tax revenue generated by the forecast economic growth, there is an urgent need for reforms to further increase revenue. This is the most difficult aspect of