THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. Reforming Europe in a time of war

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 14 and citizens? In that article, I considered the problems of the Conference on the Future of Europe and argued that, “ it is clear that there are two major imbalances: on the one hand, between the representatives from institutions and from citizens and civil society, as there are 273 of the former and 88 of the latter; and, on the other hand, the imbalance between the citizen representatives, of which there are 80, although chosen at random, and representatives from civil society, of whom there are 8. ” (Aldecoa 2021:35). In this chapter, I will examine the operation of the Conference on the Future of Europe, where the excessive role of citizens who have been chosen at random, which could have been the principal virtue of the Conference, has instead become its main defect, as it has been the reason for its failure to achieve its initial objectives, which were simply to generate proposals for improve- ments from the different sectors involved. It also failed to established clear strategic guidelines, and these in the end were watered down into 39 general proposals and 300 specific measures which, in some cases, are contradictory, such as the proposed direct election of the President of the European Commission by universal suffrage. However, it is still early to evaluate the application of some positive aspects included in the conclusions of the Conference on the Future of Europe as both the European Commission and the Council have committed themselves to their implementation. Perhaps the most important effects of the Conference on the Future of Eu- rope and its conclusions are the two resolutions adopted by the plenary session of the European Parliament on 4 May and 9 June, in which it called upon the European Council to call a European Convention in application of article 48.2. This proposal, which is separate from the 39 measures, entails reform of the Treaties, but remains incomplete as no decision was taken at the European Council of 23 and 24 June 20022, under the French Presidency. Indeed, this possibility is not even mentioned. The excessive role of citizens chosen at random in the operation of the Conference on the Future of Europe On 16 July 2019, the new President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, responded to this initiative – one that had been supported by European civil society and by us through the European Internation- al Movement and the National Councils in May 2019, and by European political parties – to hold a Conference on the Future of Europe that should “ bring together citizens, including a significant role for young people, civil society and European institutions as equal part- ners ” and would be “ open to Treaty change ” (Von der Leyen, 2019). It should be noted that, in the composition of the Conference on the Future of Europe, civil society was under-represented (only eight official members, to which can be added the 27 representatives of national events, including me, and the civil society of each of the Member states), while there was over-representation of random citizens (80) European and national institu- tions (European Parliament (108) national parliaments (108) Council of the EU (54) European Commission (3: Dubranka Suica, Vera Jourova and Maroš Šef č ovi č ); Committee of the Regions (30) and Economic and So- cial Committee (18)), to which the can be added the social representatives (8). The operation of the Conference on the Future of Europe has been even more unequal and further removed from the initial words of the President of the European Commission, who spoke of an “equal basis”. This is be- cause citizens exercise influence through the proposals developed by the four citizens’ panels, each consisting of 200 randomly selected members (800 citizens in total). Furthermore, the Plenaries and Working Groups were based entirely on the four reports presented by the citizens. As a result, the other “four pillars” of the conference – that is, the European and national insti- tutions, and representatives of national events – were restricted to completing the proposals of the Citizens’