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

The Conference on the Future of Europe 21 a firm commitment to accelerate negotiations with the expansion countries and particularly with the Balkans, following the granting of candidate country status to Ukraine and Moldova, and holding out the possibility for Georgia. If this acceleration occurs with respect to the adhesion of new members, then it should also occur with regard to deepening the European process at the internal level. In my opinion, it is clear that the role of the randomly selected citizens’ representatives has been excessive, and this has had repercussions on the operation and drafting of the conclusions of the Conference on the Future of Europe. But above all I would argue that the fundamen- tal problem of the Conference on the Future of Europe has been its lack of impact on public opinion and wider society, particularly in some countries, such as Spain. I believe that this is not just down to errors of po- litical communication by the European Commission but also to the structure of the Conference on the Future of Europe itself, as the other sectors involved – the Eu- ropean Parliament, national parliaments, Committee of the Regions, Economic and Social Committee, social stakeholders – gradually lost interest in it and ceased to participate when they saw that their capacity for influ- ence was very limited. This meant that it was citizens’ representatives who were the driving force of the Conference on the Future of Europe, but they lacked the capacity to dis- seminate the progress made by the conference and there was no structure that could have helped them in this task. This situation is very different to that of the other sectors of the Plenary of the Conference on the Future of Europe, which already have solid communi- cation structures, but these were not deployed because these sectors did not feel satisfied with the outcomes or committed to them. Finally, it is important to note that the Treaty reform requested by the European Parliament through a call for a third European Convention was not addressed during the French Presidency in the first half of the 2022, or the Czech Presidency in the second half of the year and does not seem likely to be tackled under the Swedish Presidency, either (first half of 2023). In the State of the European Union address on 14 September 2022, the President of the European Com- mission also called for a third European Convention. In the debate which followed, the majority political groups endorsed this objective, and identify a number of reasons for the need to hold a convention and undertake treaty reform. It will therefore fall to the Spanish Presidency in the Council of the EU, in the second half of 2023, to tackle the difficult task of treaty reform through a European Convention.And this task is made even harder by the fact that we are still suffering from Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, in which the EU is playing a vital role. If the EU is to be more effective, it must move beyond the unanimous decision-making system, and this is essen- tial if new sanctions are to be approved and in order to address defence and security issues. Bibliography Aldecoa Luzárraga, F. (2021). “Cómo mejorar la par- ticipación de la sociedad civil organizada y los ciudadanos en la Conferencia sobre el Futuro de Eu- ropa”. En: Fundación Alternativas y Friedrich-Ebert- Stiftung (Eds.): Informe sobre el Estado de la Unión Europea. Europa en un periodo de transición (p. 32) [en línea] [consultado el 04/10/2022]. Disponible en https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/ma - drid/17646/2021.pdf Von der Leyen, Ursula (2019): Discurso de investidura. Bruselas. Aldecoa Luzárraga, F. (Ed.) (2020). El debate ciudadano en la Conferencia sobre el Futuro de Europa: A los 70 años de la Declaración Schuman . Madrid: Marcial Pons. Aldecoa Luzarraga, F. y García Cancela, E. (2021). La Conferencia sobre el Futuro de Europa en marcha . Madrid: Los Libros de la Catarata.