Policy Sections
Mini Sections
In the recent years, the need to reform the European Union and its Treaties has become more and more pressing for several reasons. Firstly, it became clear that many bottlenecks exist in the EU's policy-making process, and that these could only be solved through the reform of the institutions. The realisation that enlargement would worsen the existing decision-making problems added to the urgency of these reforms. Secondly, it became evident that a gap was growing between the EU and its citizens, which needed to be addressed. The EU leaders therefore decided that the time has come for a profound debate on the objectives and goals of the EU, its Treaties and its institutions.
At the Nice summit (France, December 2000), EU leaders paved the way for enlargement of the EU by completing the necessary institutional changes. Nevertheless, it was clear to all that if it was difficult for the 15 Member States to arrive at agreement, enlargement was not going to make things easier and more reforms would be necessary. They therefore called for "a deeper and wider debate about the future of the EU". In an annex to the Nice Treaty entitled "Declaration on the future of the Union", the Swedish and Belgian Presidencies (which respectively held office in the first and second halves of 2001) were encouraged to launch wide-ranging discussions with all interested parties: representatives of national parliaments and all those reflecting public opinion (such as representatives of civil society).
These discussions would form the ground work for the start of another round of reforms, to be negotiated within a new Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) in 2004. It was also decided that the candidate countries would be closely associated with this process. On 7 March 2001, debates were launched across Europe.
In June 2001, the European Council in Ghotenburg (Sweden) invited Member States and candidates to summarise the debate at national level and report to successive incoming Presidencies, in preparation for the Laeken European Council.
At its meeting in Laeken (Belgium) in December 2001, the European Council drew up a Declaration containing appropriate initiatives for the continuation of this process.
The Nice European Council identified four subjects that particularly need to be addressed:
The "Laeken Declaration" identified a number of additional challenges to be examined by the Convention:
For a more detailed discussion of some of these issues, see:
: a list of questions, designed to inspire the
works of the Convention, on how the EU can be made
more democratic, transparent and efficient.At the Laeken summit, the EU leaders agreed that the Convention would be composed of representatives of the European and national parliaments, the European Commission and the governments of the Member States. The candidate countries and representatives of civil society are to be allowed to participate in the Convention as full members, without, however, being able to prevent any consensus which may emerge among the Member States.
The Convention's work involves three phases:
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"European Policy" to the EPP Political Bureau of
6 December 2001 in Brussels)
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, a CER policy brief by Heather
Grabbe (December 2001)
, a CER policy brief by Charles Grant
(May 2002)
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