With the debate around EU treaty changes back on the agenda, a group of renowned European experts from a large diversity of countries and disciplines, and after two years of systematic work, launch an innovative report on the topic: ‘EU Treaties – Why they need targeted changes. An approach based on European public goods, citizenship, and democracy’.
The EU leaders’ Granada Summit declared that the EU needs to lay the necessary internal reforms for enlargement, a recent Franco-German report about this issue is being discussed and the European Parliament is about to vote on its report for amendments in the EU Treaties. In fact, enlargement is not the only reason why EU Treaties should be updated.
A comprehensive and precise approach is proposed by this new expert report on ‘EU Treaties: Why they need targeted changes’ highlighting the new public goods which can only be provided at the EU level. This report is authored by 14 renowned experts on European constitutional law, political science, political economy and other different EU policies from across Europe, including Maria João Rodrigues, one of the architects and final negotiator of the Lisbon Treaty, and Daniela Schwarzer, one of the rapporteurs and authors of the Franco-German report.
In the report, five major reasons are identified to justify targeted treaty changes:
- More security and strategic autonomy regarding peace, energy, food, critical materials and digital transformation
- Stronger European drive to conduct the green transition and the digital transformation while tackling new social inequalities
- A larger scale investment capacity at the EU and national levels backed by sources of taxation
- A more attractive EU democracy in its representative and participatory components based on European citizenship
- Enlargement as a new geo-political imperative
Against this background, the publication makes precise proposals to promote three key strategic priorities to develop the European project: strengthening the EU sovereignty and capacity to act; creating effective means to deliver European public goods to guarantee internal cohesion; and ensuring a more democratic ownership based on a stronger European citizenship.
Authors of the Report ‘EU Treaties – Why they need targeted changes. An approach based on European public goods, citizenship and democracy’
- Maria João Rodrigues – Coordinator. FEPS President, former Member of the EP, Employment Minister of Portugal, Chair of the European Commission Advisory Board for Social Economic Research, final negotiator of the Lisbon Treaty
- Vytenis Andriukaitis. Former EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, former national Minister in Lithuania and member of the Convention on the Future of Europe
- Mercedes Bresso. Member of the EP, President of the Union of European Federalists, President of the Committee of the Regions and President of the Piemonte Region
- Stefan Collignon. Professor, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok and European Institute, London School of Economics
- Gabriela Cretu. Romanian Senator, former Member of the EP
- Marianne Dony. President of the Center of European Law, former Professor of EU Constitutional Law and President of the Institute for European Studies, Université Libre de Bruxelles
- Giovanni Grevi. Senior fellow, CSDS, Brussels School of Governance, and visiting professor, College of Europe, Bruges, and Sciences Po, Paris
- Robin Huguenot-Noël. PhD researcher in Political Economy at the European University Institute
- Guillaume Klossa. Executive President of Europa Nova, special advisor of the EU Commission and author of the EC Report “An industrial media strategy to leverage data, algorithms and artificial intelligence”
- Jo Leinen. Former Member of the EP, Honorary President of the European Movement International
- Diego Lopez Garrido. Former Secretary of State for European Affairs in Spain, Director of Fundación Alternatives
- Jernej Pikalo. Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister in Slovenia, Professor of Political Science
- Daniela Schwarzer. Member of the Bertelsmann Stiftung Executive Board, former Director of DGAP, Honorary Professor of political science at Freie Universität Berlin
- Britta Thomsen. Board member of the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators and former Member of the EP
- François Balate. Former Head of Office of the FEPS President, former Director for Policy & Advocacy of the European Youth Forum
- Christian Salm. Head of Office of the FEPS President, Former policy researcher and analyst of the EP Research Service
More about the book: https://feps-europe.eu/publication/eu-treaties-why-they-need-targeted-changes/
