In the context of EU3D, PACTE is organising a conference with Professor Sonja Puntscher Riekmann.
What is the Future of Europe? Where resides the power to define it? In 2021 the three main European organs called on the Union citizens to present pertinent ideas in a conference on the Future of Europe. In general, the proposals concern issues like European values, climate change or Europe's role in the world. This bottom-up process was preceded by bold elite announcements such as "We need to take our destiny in our own hands" (Merkel) and the call for "European sovereignty" (Macron). These statements hardly received significant response from peers nor were they further elaborated. Moreover, the impact of the conference on the Future of Europe is still unclear.
Meanwhile the EU navigates from crisis to crisis and is said to "fail forward" from one resolution to the next, nevertheless deepening integration. Some say the EU is "failing forward" meaning the EU lives under the permanent necessity of inventing new corrective measures which sometimes stretch or even violate the limits of legality enshrined in the Treaties. As a result, there is a growing hybrid institutional set-up of supranational and intergovernmental governance in the EU that blurs processes of accountability and responsibility and thus, undermines democratic legitimacy. The inexorable rise of populism as one expression of the ensuing legitimacy crisis puts European decision-making at the mercy of national interests and sentiments.
In this context, the fundamental question of the lecture is about whether European elites have at all a substantive vision of what the Future of Europe is, where its finalité lies, and how it is to be achieved. The question is all the more urgent in the current geopolitical crisis in which the EU aims at shedding its dependency on Russia (and China) while deepening its dependency on the USA and NATO. Are Merkel's and Macron's statements ultimately obsolete? What if the USA see a return to power of Trump or the like and thus, the interest of the USA in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict possibly wanes as already voiced by some Republicans in Congress? What if the rivalry between China and the USA escalates over Taiwan? Is the EU prepared for such scenario and what would be its position? While the Citizens Conference is split over issues like a European army, it is unanimous about the need for the EU "to speak with one voice" in CFSP and "to act as a truly global player ... making a difference in response to any crisis." Defining such difference would indeed be a defining moment in the debate about Europe's future.
Sonja Puntscher Riekmann's lecture 'From crisis to crisis: The determinants of Europe's future' will be held in English.
