12-month Future EU Conference is 'impossible', expert warns

MEPs generally accepted having a joint presidency, but some have questioned the role and competences of the executive board - the body that will steer the everyday work of the CoFoE.

The group leaders Manfred Weber of the centre-right European People's Party, Iratxe García of the Socialists & Democrats, and Dacian Cioloș of the liberal Renew Europe, who are likely to represent the European Parliament on this board, wrote to Portuguese prime minister Antonio Costa at the weekend calling for greater flexibility regarding the structure of the executive board.

"Our citizens find the institutional set up of our Union complex. With the Conference on the Future of Europe, we can show them we want things to be done differently," they said in a letter.

A Renew official told EUobserver that the joint declaration launching the event, as it stands, does not satisfy some members of the three main political parties in the European Parliament, who want "lighter governance" and a "more operational" executive board.

Green MEP Daniel Freund, for his part, warned that "in two years from now citizens won't care if there were one, six or 500 presidents. What's gonna count in the end is the political outcome".

The joint declaration launching the conference, which was presented to EU ambassadors on Monday (1 March), maintains a strict composition of the executive committee, which would be also co-chaired by the three main EU institutions, each having three representatives and up to four observers.

One of these observers will be the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union, a body composed of national lawmakers dealing with EU affairs.

Meanwhile, the remaining observers could be representatives of other institutions, notably the European Committee of the Regions and the Economic Social Committee, or social partners.

Timeline is 'Mission Impossible'

The joint declaration foresees that CoFoE conclusions should be reached by spring 2022 - a date set before the pandemic, suitable for French president Emmanuel Macron.

This way the initially-scheduled a two-year conference would last only a year or even less (considering holidays), which, for some experts, civil society organisations and MEPs, is not feasible.

"Identifying themes through online consultation, convening citizens' panels to discuss them and wrapping those up in less than one year at Covid-19 times seems 'Mission Impossible' at best, or a mere tick-box exercise at worst," warned Alberto Alemanno, professor of EU law at HEC Paris.

The European institutions and member states are expected to commit to organising European and national "citizens panels" to collect citizens' inputs on a long list of themes based on the EU institutions' political priorities. The declaration explicitly allows citizens to come up with more topics.

However, these events will have to respect a set of principles and minimum criteria, the so-called "conference charter," to be defined by the joint presidency and executive board.

Additionally, citizens are also expected to be part of the "conference plenary" which will help draw conclusions of the conference, together with EU representatives, national lawmakers and civil society. They will meet at least every six months.

According to Alemanno, "by now expectations are low" since the event remains at the moment "a top-down exercise of little interest to most EU citizens".

"To take off, the CoFoE would need to be genuinely bottom-up and driven by civil society together with political leaders at the national and local level and the media playing their part to 'tell' Europe to as many citizens as possible," he added.

EU ambassadors are expected to give the green light to the joint declaration on Wednesday, while the Conference of Presidents in the parliament will assess the draft agreement on Thursday.