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

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 16 underrepresentation of civil society, discussed below.The key shortfalls are as follows: a) composition; b) working method; c) over-representation of institutions; d) exces- sive sui generis participation of citizens; e) absence of principal participation of young people. The underrepresentation of civil society and limited role of other pillars In the 2021 Report, we highlighted the over-representa- tion of citizens in the composition of the Conference, and this year we have found that its operation has been even worse, as citizens chosen at random have exercised too much leadership, and the representatives of the other pillars have had a real role far below their weight. Civil society was also underrepresented, although this was compensated for, in part, by the participation of 27 representatives of organized civil society and na- tional events, with the result that there were ultimately 34 represents of civil society, compared to the 80 cit- izens chosen at random. However, this representation remains insufficient, as the randomly selected citizens had the right to initiate action which the others lacked. By the same token, the Plenaries of the Conference on the Future of Europe allocated them more time for there interventions, so that there was no balance between the representatives of organized civil society and the citizens’ representatives. The unequal operation of the nine Working Groups After the second Plenary, a new working mecha- nism was established, involving nine Working Groups, whose chairs were directly appointed by the Board of the Conference on the Future of Europe, as follows: two from the European Commission, two from the European Parliament, two from the National parliaments, two from the Council of the EU, and one from the Presidency of the European Youth Forum. These Working Groups are: Climate change and the environment (Group 1), Health (Group 2), A stronger economy, social justice and jobs (Group 3), EU in the world (Group 4), Values and rights, rule of law, security (Group 5), Digital transformation (Group 6), Democracy (Group 7), Migration (Group 8) and Education, culture, youth and sport (Group 9). The operation of these groups was very unequal. In some, such as democracy (8) or digital transformation (6), the citizen representatives were flexible and accept- ed significant changes to their proposals, such as the transnational lists or the Spizenkadidaten . However, in other groups, such as EU in the world (4), in which I was a participant and whose workings I discuss below, they were completely inflexible when it came to suggestions and proposals not contained in their report, arguing that they had not been approved and voted on and thus could not be taken into account. Russian aggression against Ukraine prompts a new phase in the Conference on the Future of Europe The Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine, a country associated with the EU, is the largest military in- vasion on the European continent since the SecondWorld War.Although there are no official figures, there are now estimated to have been almost 100,000 deaths, of which some 80% are young people; with approximately three times that number of wounded. In addition, there are more than 15 million displaced people, of whom 8 million are internally displaced, 6 million are refugees in other countries, and almost half a million appear to have been forcibly transferred to the Russian Federation. Following the Russian Federation’s invasion of the sovereign state of Ukraine on 24 February, the percep- tion of the Conference on the Future of Europe changed substantially.Two Ukrainian representatives attended the fourth Plenary of the conference, and High Representa- tive Josep Borrell addressed the Plenary of 11 March from the Versailles Summit. The EU offered a coordinated response, with unlimit- ed political support from the 27 Member states, through