France and Germany have big plans for E.U. reforms. Is this the right time?

Six decades after the first steps toward European integration, is the European Union ready to discuss further changes to its foundations? Last week, France and Germany issued a joint call for a two-year Conference on the Future of Europe. Here’s what you need to know.

Past treaties have led to sweeping economic, political and constitutional changes in Europe, including the single market, the euro currency, a common approach to border management and E.U. citizenship. However, these treaties have largely failed to address citizens’ concerns over the E.U.’s legitimacy.

Treaty making has changed

Our new book looks at how Europe’s treaty-making has changed since 1950. Once, national governments negotiated new treaties behind closed doors, expecting a rubber stamp in their home parliaments for a more European union.

Those days are long gone. A number of national parliaments have raised the threshold for giving their consent to E.U. treaty changes. And court challenges to — and referendums on — new treaties have become more common.

The E.U. got an enormous shock when its 2004 treaty on a Constitution for Europe fell apart after Dutch and French voters rejected it. The Lisbon Treaty, which came into force on Dec. 1, 2009, salvaged much of this constitution under a less provocative title, but also fueled new support for Euroskeptics in the U.K. Pressure within the Conservative party eventually led U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron to gamble and lose on the 2016 Brexit referendum.

This is the first major E.U. treaty reform in more than a decade

France and Germany’s latest proposal is a trial balloon. The two countries want a conference that brings together the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council, meaning that the E.U.’s most powerful institutions will be represented. By identifying the E.U.’s democratic systems and policies ranging from climate change to the social market economy as the subjects of this conference, France and Germany have signaled that they want ambitious reforms.

However, the proposal assiduously avoids the procedures set out in the treaties for their own revision. Instead of calling a convention or an intergovernmental conference to prepare treaty changes, it would allow E.U. heads of state or governments to decide by 2020 whether and how to take the Conference’s recommendations forward.

E.U. leaders could at this point agree to pursue less ambitious policy aims under the existing treaties. But given France and Germany’s focus on big questions about democracy, it is more likely that E.U. members would agree to treaty revisions. Then each member would have to approve these changes in accordance with its own national constitution, a process that could take a further year or more to complete.

France and Germany want citizen buy-in

By incorporating the views of citizens, civil society and experts into the Conference, France and Germany hope to generate not only bright ideas but politically popular ones.

The E.U.’s past attempt to create an E.U. Constitution involved a Convention on the Future of Europe that didn’t generate the desired legitimacy. It’s possible that the E.U. may have learned in the meantime from national citizen assemblies like those that paved the way for abortion reform in Ireland.

The timing of France and Germany’s announcement reflects the likelihood that the U.K. will leave the European Union on Jan. 31, 2020, which means a recalcitrant member won’t be part of future negotiations. Public opinion in the E.U.’s remaining 27 members suggests a window of opportunity for treaty change. A recent Eurobarometer poll shows a record 68 percent of E.U. citizens see membership as beneficial.

Germany’s support for the Conference is a big win for French President Emmanuel Macron, who promised to relaunch the E.U. as a democratic force. Macron has struggled to convince German Chancellor Angela Merkel of the need for reform on the euro, as well as on European security and defense — issues Europeans will discuss at the Conference. Merkel will get a final opportunity to shape the future of the E.U. before she leaves office in 2021, if not before. However, the two-year timetable for the Conference ensures that Merkel will not tie her successor’s hands.

The Conference may face opposition from the European Parliament

There’s a good chance that E.U. members will agree to launch the Conference on the Future of Europe at their summit in Brussels on Dec. 12-13. But a big question is whether the European Commission and European Parliament will fully endorse this plan.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen supports the idea of a conference. However, European Parliament President David Sassoli will take convincing that the Conference is serious about the E.U.’s democratic future. Earlier this year, France and Germany rejected the European Parliament’s candidate for the post of Commission president before switching their support to von der Leyen. This backroom deal undermined the E.U’s move toward a more parliamentary system.

France and Germany want a “senior European personality” to lead the Conference. No doubt Macron will seek to place a French politician in this crucial position. Michel Barnier, who has skillfully led the E.U. Brexit negotiations, is an obvious candidate. But other E.U. members will push hard to promote their own candidates.

Of course, it’s not at all certain that the Conference’s proposals — or any proposals — can produce changes that win the support of all E.U. members. Our research shows that a major revision to the E.U. treaties would need the approval of 42 parliamentary chambers and up to 17 national courts. A referendum is effectively inevitable in Ireland, and possible in 20 more E.U. members.

What happens if an E.U. member says no to the new treaty that might emerge from the Conference? Given the difficulties of securing approval, it is possible that Europe’s future does not lie in a general treaty change, but instead in bespoke treaties between subsets of E.U. members designed to deepen integration in specific policy areas.

Dermot Hodson is professor of political economy at Birkbeck College, University of London. Imelda Maher is Sutherland Full Professor of European Law at University College Dublin. They are the authors of The Transformation of EU Treaty Making: The Rise of Parliaments, Referendums and Courts since 1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

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