After 3 week-ends of deliberation, the first citizens' recommendations for EU leaders were approved over the weekend.
Their contents are as important as the PROCESS that delivered them.
The @EUI_EU final panel revealed a humbling, collective learning experience. A 🧵 #CoFoE
Citizens, mostly not used to transnational exposure & live interpretation (!), played the game by engaging in debates generally considered a prerogative of political elites/pundits.
Media pluralism, rule of law, conditionality of EU funding, citizen education. Wow.
Citizens produced 42 recommendations – from simplifying the names of EU institutions to guaranteeing media pluralism and Europeanizing politics, with one common thread:
to enable emergence of a pan-EU public sphere to enhance EU accountability
No surprise, being freshly exposed to the benefits of transnational interactions, citizens almost unanimously proposed the establishment of a permanent mechanism of citizen assemblies at the EU level. Most likely tangible #cofoe outcome IMHO
While the quality of the facilitation varied across groups, it is THE citizens who generated the ideas and shape them up.
Expert input deliberately played a minor, indirect role, not to chill nor kill the deliberation
To be further discussed
Most recommendations may appear fuzzy to an expert audience, but they are the product of genuine citizen deliberation and clear enough to be understood by their political addressees #cofoe#EUCO
On a negative note, the single recommendation aimed at amplifying the voices of marginalised communities failed to reach the threshold of 70% of support. Difficult not to ascribe this to the lack of representation of these communities in the citizens’ panel @takeover_europe
This citizen panel on democracy has now concluded its work, but – as other 3 citizens panels prepare their recommendations (by mid-Feb?) – its 20 citizen ambassadors prepare their presentation to #COFOE plenary. Deliberation continues this time with the politicians in the room.
Ultimately, this first of the last round of citizen panels has set an important methodological precedent for those to come, and more importantly sent out a powerful message:
2. Neither the Treaty nor the rules of procedure expressly foresee an early departure of the holder of Council presidency.
They focus on pathological situations of “impediment” or “termination” for which an automatic replacement by the rotating president is foreseen. Yet these circumstances do not immediately apply here .
Michel is set to voluntarily step back
3. This suggests that a replacement for Charles Michel would need to be found and appointed by the time Michel will step back to run as MEP in Belgium, well Wallonia.
That new holder of #EUCO presidency will therefore merely complete Michel’s term to bring it to its natural expiration by the end of the year.
Charles Michel’s decision to prematurely leave the EU Council presidency to pursue his own political career as MEP is not only self-centred but also irresponsible:
it will pave the way for Viktor Orbán, the then president of the rotating presidency of the Council to take over #EUCO until a new appointment.
2. As anticipated, 6-months ago Viktor Orbán isn’t entitled to hold the rotating presidency of the EU due to his manifest conflict of interest between being in breach of EU law and potentially be the chair of the Council meetings deciding on sanctions.
Making him, even temporarily, the #EUCO president would be even more problematic and irresponsible politico.eu/article/suspen…
3. Charles Michel manifestly failed to leave a mark in EU politics as council president.
Whether he will make a difference as a leader of a national (well, regional) party in his native Belgium (Wallonie) remains an open question.
To whom does the proposed EU ‘Foreign Agents Law’ apply? 🧵
(spoiler: virtually EVERYONE including your NGO, consultancy, think-tank, research institute and you as natural personal insofar as you work with a third country).
2. Focus is on ANY provider of interest representation service, be they private organisations (consultancies), non-profits (NGOs, research institute) and individuals whose principle or occasional occupation is to influence decision-making processes at the MS and/or EU level, on behalf of a third country entity.
3. This suggests that NGOs, consultancies, think tanks and research centers based in Brussels receiving funding by third countries may be caught by the BELGIAN register to come.
🧵 Has Commissioner Várhely breached EU law when announcing solo the suspension of EU funds for Palestine?
As calls for his resignation multiply, here’re the provisions he manifestly breached but whose enforcement belongs to the sole President @vonderleyen A 🧵
2. By announcing the immediate suspension of the disbursement of the EU funds to Palestine - in reaction to the horrific attacks of Hamas on Israeli civilians on October 7th -, Mr Olivér Várhelyi breached Art. 5 of the Code of Conduct for the members of the EU Commission which operationalised their treaty obligations under Art 245TFEU
3. Under the principle of collegiality (Article 5.1 of the Code):
Members “ shall comply with the duty of loyalty towards the Commission…and act and express themselves with the restraint that their office requires.”
It’s a new collective understanding of the EU integration process, beyond full membership.
This can no longer be based on a ‘set menu’ but must move to ‘à la carte’ approach.
A thread 🧵
1. Ever since the central eastern European countries joined the EU in 2004 and 2007, the process has been neglected, with the EU pretending to negotiate accession & candidate countries pretending to reform.
2. This has damaged the credibility of the enlargement process which has proven incapable of offering a credible accession prospect.
This has in turn confirmed the sceptics’ belief that enlargement is doomed as candidates not ready.
The ‘group of twelve’ - a Franco-German initiative - offers a credible and uniquely pragmatic approach to EU institutional reform.
Here’s why & how 🧵
2. Rather than getting trapped into endless discussions on the nature of the EU, the group offers a set of realistic reforms addressing the EU democracy crisis, which it soberly acknowledges in its multifaceted nature:
- common values (eg rule of law)
- lack of EU responsiveness to citizens’ demand & cross border challenges
- enlargement
3. The prospect of the enlargement of the EU offers the only window of opportunity for institutional reform: neither the present nor the future’s Union can’t work unless its institutional & political setting are adjusted to both new internal (eg vetoes) and external (eg Ukrainian grain) realities