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

84 up to the profound adaptations required to undertake the ecological and digital transitions. Member states are also divided by internal issues, such as the need to implement a global migration policy which is both practical and is consistent with the values we claim to respect, debate about fiscal rules, and the delicate issue of respect for democratic values by all our Member states. Even without the war, the international context is a challenging one: evolving towards a multipolar system, with increasing competition between big states and with a tendency towards deglobalization, which means that Europeans will have to adapt our policies in search of “open strategic autonomy” (Cagnin, Muench et al., 2021). Ever since the foundation of the EU, we have been committed to promoting our values of democra- cy and human rights, international law, multilateralism and the creation of international institutions, and we have not yet found a place in the current international framework. Over the last two decades, Europeans and the EU have not had a single moment of political, economic and social stability and tranquillity, and we have instead had to adapt to a situation in which crises have become our new normality, what has been dubbed a “permacrisis” (Zuleeg, Emmanouilidis and Borges de Castro, 2021). Eu- ropean citizens, aware of this challenging environment, increasingly expect the EU to protect them from the im- pact of these crises on their lives, whether that be the war in Ukraine, COVID or another economic crash (European Commission, 2022). This is the same diagnosis that can be drawn from the results of the Conference on the Future of Europe, which brought citizens together with representatives of institutions, with the aim of strengthening the EU’s dem- ocratic legitimacy. There is only one way to interpret the proposals contained in its final report: European citizens expect the EU to respond to their needs and problems but, to achieve this, they expect the EU’s policies to be redefined to make them more effective and more aligned with their values (CoFoE, 2022). However, if it is to satisfy these expectations, the EU cannot continue within the current constitutional framework but needs, instead, to undergo profound reform, as advocated by the Parlia- ment and the European Commission. In an EU in “crisis management mode” and with several Member states governed by Eurosceptic political parties or relying on such parties for support, the task of improving the EU’s operation by revising its constitutional basis – the Treaties – does not appear to be viable. It is important to note that Treaty reform is an extremely rigid and complex political process, as it is subject to a “double lock” (Guinea Llorente, 2008), requiring the unanimous support of the twenty-seven governments to approve the reform, and the ratification of all Member states through their internal constitutional procedures. But we also agree with Professor Mangas that the Eurosceptic message of the populists is finding a re- sponse among citizens in part due to failures in the op- eration of democracy, and the lack of trust in institutions and their capacity to act and respond to new contexts (Mangas, 2021: 394). It is also important to recognize the role played by external support from illiberal gov- ernments in the form of disinformation. As a result, not doing anything is not an option, because unsatisfactory political outcomes simply feed populism. Something has to be done, and the Spanish Presidency has the job of dealing with this difficult scenario. The EU needs to reform if it is to address the challenges it faces The first point to remember is that the Treaties that pro- vide the basis for the EU’s operation emerged from the work of the European Convention in 2003. Although it did not come into force until 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon simply introduced the principal reforms of the European constitution into the structure of the previous Treaties (Aldecoa and Guinea, 2008, pp. 61–77).This means that the current Treaties were drafted nineteen years ago, de- signed for an internal and international reality that was radically different to the current situation.