THE JEAN MONNET PROGRAM J.H.H. Weiler, Director Gráinne de Burca, Director Jean Monnet Working Paper 16/17 Alfredo De Feo Relaunching the European project: reforms without changing the treaties NYU School of Law • New York, NY 10011 The Jean Monnet Working Paper Series can be found at www.JeanMonnetProgram.org All rights reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form without permission of the author. ISSN 2161-0320 (online) Copy Editor: Danielle Leeds Kim © Alfredo De Feo 2017 New York University School of Law New York, NY 10011 USA Publications in the Series should be cited as: AUTHOR, TITLE, JEAN MONNET WORKING PAPER NO./YEAR [URL] Relaunching the European project: reforms without changing the treaties Alfredo de Feo* ABSTRACT The European project is going through an unprecedented crisis. A large part of public opinion is seeing the European Union more as the problem than the solution. The business as usual approach is not a guarantee of survival. This work stems from the necessity of a radical and urgent change of the European Union. It suggests reforms to rebuild a new credibility for public opinion. The reforms proposed, framed by the lessons learned from the past, can be achieved without changing the Treaties. This work highlights also how the momentum for reform is favourable to shape the new Europe for the next decade, but the new Europe will not happen without a strong political leadership and more involvement of the public opinion. _____________________ *Professor at European College of Parma, Fellow at European University Institute, Florence 1 Table of contents Prologue ............................................................................................................................ 5 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 7 Part I: Europe today: the state of play ..................................................................... 11 Governance .................................................................................................................... 12 The Council ................................................................................................................ 12 The European Parliament .......................................................................................... 12 The Commission ........................................................................................................ 13 Delivery .......................................................................................................................... 15 Regulatory policies ..................................................................................................... 16 Traditional policies ..................................................................................................... 17 Priorities 2014-2020 .................................................................................................. 18 A different use of the EU Budget ............................................................................... 20 Vision ............................................................................................................................. 24 What Institutions think ............................................................................................. 25 What Political leaders think ...................................................................................... 28 What think tanks think .............................................................................................. 29 Lessons Learned ........................................................................................................... 32 The Institutional crisis of the 1970s .............................................................................. 32 The 1970 & 1975 Treaties ............................................................................................... 34 The mid-1980s crisis ..................................................................................................... 35 The Single European Act ............................................................................................... 36 Soft law: budgetary discipline ....................................................................................... 37 From the snake in the tunnel to the treaty of Maastricht ............................................. 38 The modest achievements of the Amsterdam and Nice Treaties. ................................ 40 From the Convention to the Lisbon Treaty ................................................................... 42 The momentum for the reforms ............................................................................... 45 Reforms on the political agenda .................................................................................... 45 Brexit .............................................................................................................................. 47 Geopolitics ..................................................................................................................... 47 The MFF beyond 2020 .................................................................................................. 48 Relaunching the European project Part II: Essential reforms to relaunch the European project ........................... 50 A more democratic Europe ........................................................................................ 51 European Parliament accountability............................................................................. 52 Proposal ..................................................................................................................... 55 Relations with the national parliaments ....................................................................... 57 Proposal ..................................................................................................................... 61 No Representation without taxation ............................................................................. 63 Proposal ..................................................................................................................... 64 The timeline and duration of the Multiannual Financial Framework ......................... 65 Proposal ..................................................................................................................... 66 Differentiated integration .......................................................................................... 69 Flexibility in the EU Treaty ........................................................................................... 69 Flexibility outside the Treaty ......................................................................................... 72 Structured enhanced cooperation ................................................................................ 74 The European Galaxy .................................................................................................... 77 The core EU ................................................................................................................ 78 The Eurozone ............................................................................................................. 79 Other Satellites ........................................................................................................... 80 European Partnerships .............................................................................................. 81 EU Policies toward 2030 ............................................................................................ 83 The challenges ahead ..................................................................................................... 83 Doing less ....................................................................................................................... 87 Common Agricultural Policy ..................................................................................... 87 Cohesion policy .......................................................................................................... 90 Horizontal problems .................................................................................................. 92 A closer Europe .............................................................................................................. 93 European Defence ...................................................................................................... 93 Relations with the Middle East and African countries ............................................. 94 Security in Europe ..................................................................................................... 95 Climate change ........................................................................................................... 95 The European Social Agenda ..................................................................................... 96 Economic and Monetary Union ................................................................................. 97 Concluding Remarks ................................................................................................... 100 Part III Europe in 2030 .............................................................................................. 101 The game starts ............................................................................................................. 101 Two supplementary drivers of reform