A New Vision for Europe

Publication: Nikola Benin, Ph.D

A new political cycle is about to be triggered. The policy choices made by the new EU mandate following the European Parliament elections will impact the next 10 years or more. The European Commission and member states should seize this opportunity to create an atmosphere of departure and engage in a debate about a new Vision for Europe. Recent elections and developments in Europe, all point to the need to establish a different type of politics and political processes, if the pursuit of European integration is not to be consigned to failure. The EU has an opportunity to front these dynamics and harness the emotions and commitment of stakeholders and citizens by demonstrating its comparative value to member states, and those that it represents. Current trade relations, emerging markets and economies in the east and south; millennials, growing polarity between rich and poor, urbanisation and the pace of climate change are a heady mixture compounded and accelerated by digitalisation, all of which make a compelling case for Europe to behave differently and take the initiative to readjust, reorder and redefine itself. To meet the familiar challenges to those at the start of the last century the EU needs to be ready and charged by insight and foresight to regain its original purpose reinvented for modern times. The combination of these forces, their simultaneous acceleration and impact will increasingly call upon and accentuate the relationship between citizens and those that govern them in terms of trust and confidence. This calls for more resilient, agile institutions and policy coherence. The EU needs to press the reset button on how it readies itself, adapts and meets the challenges of the early part of this 21st Century. Hard wiring the future EU to its citizens is selfevident but often not fully understood. It requires a different mindset and starting point - the EU’s future will be determined by how it does this and makes a virtue of rejuvenating participatory democracy and becoming a pathfinder. Enabling the co-production of policy and tra 5 The recommendations contained in this report form a policy toolbox crowd sourced from diverse sectors across Europe and citizens, for an alliance of those prepared to make the EU successful, in touch, relevant and an innovation lab for the world. This would build on its credentials of research and development; leading on its status as the largest economy in the world, its nascent digital capacity, its potential to lead on sustainability and create inclusive economic growth. This will require political parties committed to these principles, vision and values to form a coalition to give effect to the policy choices and opportunities set out in this report. Policy coherence and developing a new localism will be key drivers from the ‘top’ to configure a bottom up EU; none of this requires new money - it simply needs to be spent smarter and geared to prevention informed by foresight with a commitment to doing things differently and better. Simplicity, agility and leadership are required to make space to create a bigger ‘EU tent’, bringing citizens and the private sector as shareholders of the project and not only recipients or conduits for its success. The EU’s strength in these volatile times will be to take a lead on issues that cannot be easily executed or resolved at member state level. The Union can also play a role in testing alternatives to governance and dealing with problems related to people’s sense of security, prosperity and saving the planet. Given recent geopolitical developments pitching the US and China against one another, and other pressing external threats, including in cyberwarfare, the EU now has no choice but to gain more clout in the international arena if it wants to defend and promote its interests and values. How we get there is the basis of the recommendations in this report. 6 The idea of Europe and why it is important as a union has never been more fragile than it is now. The forthcoming elections will be a test of both its resilience and its ability to overcome some of the challenges that have plagued the European project since its founding. The time to act for change is now; to sustain and keep alive a beautiful idea that has secured peace and prosperity for the past 70 years. Now is the time to revitalise the connection between citizens and the European Union. Somehow, this connection has been weakened. But without it, we would unravel as a community and become exposed to potential future risks. So, how do we stop this beautiful idea from fading? Though it is a difficult proposition, it is something that can be revived and redeemed, depending on the passion of citizens and the commitment of all of us. Friends of Europe's #EuropeMatters initiative, in which this 'Vision for Europe' report forms an integral part, is our contribution in searching for ways to reinvigorate enthusiasm for the European project, to ensure that Europe is better prepared to take strategic action to align the future we face with the future we want. We must accept that most of our democratic processes and their structural frameworks were created in the past. Now that we are in the early part of the 21st century, perhaps we need to craft a new approach. It is time to think differently about how people feel represented, engaged and included. It is time to make space for a more collective, participative and inclusive environment. In the first 40 years of the last century, after a successive vortex of wars, the devastation of communities and one of the most serious moral crimes ever committed, there was a resounding view that this should never be repeated. There was a united desire to form a different kind of ideological base through a government structure more in tune to the needs of its citizens. Big ideas gave birth to concepts like welfarism and the notion of a social protection net for all citizens. It was understood that big governm 7 By taking risks in the early stages of investment, we can tap into ‘patient capital’, a process by which long-term returns result from short-term loss. The ultimate goal is social prosperity. But how do we reach this? To galvanise a new economic base, we need to change the way we think about supply and demand and move to a more managed market economy. If we are to guarantee prosperity, we need to radically rethink the process by which citizens and institutions interact. Ultimately, we need a renewed social contract: one that challenges our traditional relationship to capital and allows us to stay afloat in the digital revolution. One of the central recommendations outlined in this report is the introduction of the principle of powersharing. Our definition of power-sharing, does not intend to usurp or undermine the importance of parliamentary democracy. Instead, what we are proposing in this report – as a foundation of the new EU mandate – is to think differently about the dynamic of power, and about how, if adopted appropriately, power-sharing can engender greater trust, hope and confidence by including citizens and stakeholders as active participants in decision-making processes, acknowledging them as assets when it comes to problem-solving and policy development. It is also about recognising the ways in which unfair distributions of power can often exclude and sustain disadvantage and discrimination. The new EU mandate will have to think seriously about how it can better serve the needs of increasingly diverse communities that now comprise European populations, while at the same time recognising the multitude of benefits that arise from having a Europe that is culturally dynamic. There is no magic in this toolbox of new policy recommendations. It is simple and pragmatic but with an underlying ambition to be bold. Among the eclectic mix of recommendations included within this report, there is a proposal for the appointment of nominated commissioners in the fields of sustainability and security so as to provide greater structural focus, clarity and accountability within our institutions. There are recommendations that range from appointing in each member state dedicated Deputy Prime Ministers focusing on European affairs exclusively (in order to improve EU governance), to the suggestion that Europe should become an innovation lab for the world. By taking an evidence-based approach and assessing the trends that are most likely to affect Europe's future, this policy toolbox avails of strategic foresight and addresses the most urgent questions about what Europe needs to do if it is to be successful. In developing these policy choices and recommendations, we have attempted to behave as we seek others to: to share power. We opened a space for private, public and civil society sectors across Europe and the globe to contribute their intelligence, experience, capabilities and skills. We consulted citizens across Europe to hear what they had to say. The results that emerged from our #EuropeMatters poll made it clear that Europe still matters to them. Nine out of ten of those surveyed agreed that the EU should be more than just a single market and more than four-fifths (81%) thought the EU should not give priority to the further shifting of power to national governments. In sum, our poll showed that citizens are calling for a Europe that focuses on the big questions of peace, jobs and climate change. Our hope is that the policy ideas and recommendations contained in this report will stimulate fresh thinking and debate around the new EU mandate. But more than that, we hope that these ideas and recommendations will kickstart broader debate among a cross-section of communities and member states about their own vision for Europe. 8 Get the building blocks right • Agree a social contract for Europe which commits the EU to adopt structures of governance, policies and actions that are based on more power sharing and finding ways of working focused on the challenges societies will face in the future. Its purpose should be to deliver better on accountability and transparency to engender greater trust. It should be based on a view of what makes a good society built on the founding treaties of the EU and communicate what the EU is for – peace, prosperity and sustainability for its citizens, member states, the private sector and civil society stakeholders, its neighbours and global partners. • Appoint in each member states a deputy Prime Minister in charge of Europe, and Europe alone, and organise the work of the European Commission around prosperity, sustainability and security at both the Commissioner and at the Directorate General level to give it more focus, agility and responsiveness. This would reduce silo thinking, create greater policy coherence and improve its pace. • Make equality matter – deliver on performance targets to rebalance the gender and diversity divide and improve their representation in leadership roles. Engage Europe’s left behind youth through a millennials’ premium to enable them to become ambassadors of EU values, its liberal democracy and as a place of opportunity. A Policy Tool Box for The New EU Mandate The challenge that lies ahead for the EU is to proactively respond to the changing trends in our modern society. The EU needs to adapt to the circumstances it finds itself in and articulate its importance by making a virtue of the role it can play in innovation and development. This toolbox is, in essence, a package of policy ideas which the new EU mandate can use to pursue and reclaim its raison d’être and rationale for the future. It will require compromise and consensus-building. But if we are to sustain the Europe we love and care for, we need to nurture it and shape it in accordance with the desires of the people and communities for whom it was founded. As a result, we propose that it is time to establish a new social contract in Europe. This set of recommendations is our humble contribution to the already substantial catalogue of work that has been done by countless others, all working hard towards the united goal of sustaining the EU project and inspiring all of those who have a stake in its future. 9 • Establish a new localism by engaging citizens, mayors, cities and regions as sources of policy ideas and innovation, to ensure Europe wide impact and create the foundation for a new bottom-up approach. Transform the system: re-set the economic and social frameworks • Fairer taxation: create a common, transparent, European tax framework that allows citizens at the national levels to compare their tax regimes, thus allowing people to make more informed political choices over time. While tax policies are mostly national, Europe should advocate for a simple, progressive income tax with a broad base, enabling a lowering of rates, with few exceptions. Uphold the idea of tax competition for productive units between countries and regions but eliminate the artificial, purely corporate, profit-based holding optimisation. Introduce destination taxation for digital businesses, comparable to the EU Commission’s proposal for digital corporate tax. • Economic policies to strengthen the private sector, particularly with regard to family/privateowned businesses and entrepreneurs: create a European label for sustainability. Reflect the growing need for social sector companies in addition to cooperatives. Enable efficient transfers of SME family/private businesses to new owners/generations, recognising the crucial roles that these businesses play for European prosperity. Acknowledge the role of a supportive regional and local banking system instead of exclusively supporting large cross-border players. Recognise the globalised competition that face large European companies today, and ensure that our regulatory approaches reflect these realities properly. • Re-invent the welfare state: Embrace the new way of working and transform the labour market to reflect the technology revolution, the transition to a low-carbon economy, demographic changes and migratory flows. Continue to support better integration between the public and the private sector when it comes to collaboration on training and job creation, focusing particularly on how to stimulate STEM and entrepreneurial skills. For each worker, create a European life-long learning account that can seamlessly “travel” across Europe. Finalise the implementation of the European Social Pillar. Lay the ground for a future, voluntary harmonisation of national social security frameworks by making them comparable analogous to the tax suggestion above. • Re-invent health care to tackle demographic change: Fund new models that comprehensively tackle key areas such as local medical coverage and digital health in order to increase productivity of the healthcare sector and tackle the challenges that arise from an ageing population and those most in need. Decentralise integrated energy, mobility and infrastructure innovations • Parliamentary oversight: Include a European Parliament Standing Committee on the European Energy Transition and an Energy Transition Support Service to support the development of national plans for member states and ensure the implementation of new legislation and regulations. Flagship initiatives with clear and understandable goals could be launched by the Commission, for example, to deeply renovate 1 million buildings by 2025. • Accelerate experimentation: take up new technologies an 10 strategy, in which companies and entrepreneurs could play a key role with researchers, public administration and civil society actors. A sizeable budget from Horizon Europe should be allocated for the development of transition super labs for this purpose. They could be conceived as real-life laboratories where systemic innovation for fully climate neutral economies can be undertaken in locations where such transitions would ordinarily prove difficult. This would enable a more developed regional strategy to ensure a ‘just transition’. Re-organise institutions for immediate action on sustainability as a long-term economic goal • Confirm the ambition: achieve a climateneutral economy for Europe by mid-century, at the latest, and define a European carbon budget that is consistent with that including targeting immediate investments in innovation and associated actions; there should be a 2030 target of 55% emissions reductions and an immediate action plan for 2020-2025 in line with SDGs. This should be included in the top three priorities of the New EU mandate, central to the activities of the European Semester, with associated reporting and monitoring. • Accountability and structure: the first of five Vice-Presidents should be appointed with responsibility for Climate Neutrality and Sustainability, with all relevant Directorate Generals (DGs) working primarily to him/her. These would include amongst others, DGs working in the fields of growth, research and innovation; environment, climate and energy; competition and trade; agriculture, mobility and regions. With clear organisational authority, short-term initiatives across key areas would then be developed, broadly in line with the ‘Clean Planet for All’ agenda. • Adopt similar structures in the other EU institutions so that the Parliament and the Council also reflect the political and organisational priorities themselves, in order to partner with the Commission in its development and implementation effectively. This would address the clear need for the EU to help member states focus on the way SDGs are implemented, enabling a better understanding of the process, facilitating peer-to-peer exchange and developing more accountability from a stronger EU-wide framework for all of these. • An EU Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Establish a European Sustainability Panel for Europe comprising of a panel of scientists reporting directly to the Council of ministers, with a cross-disciplinary composition covering all sciences, underpinned by an ability to inform and drive EU policy. An industrial strategy for climate neutrality and circular economy A cross-sectoral integrated package should: • Enable investment for innovation in zeroemissions technologies at both the early stages of deployment and at the end stages. • Establish partnerships to develop world-leading industrial alliances of companies, investors and other stakeholders - such as the batteries alliance. • Lead and mainstream market development through public procurement, wide-ranging revision of existing or new standards for products, processes and services and additional fiscal incentives. • Develop and design energy markets, integrated with industrial priorities and clusters. 11 • Establish Infrastructure for minimum capacity carbon capture and storage linking industrial clusters with distribution and off-shore storage. • Implement interim measures to ensure fair trade with competitors through border adjustments. Reform finance and economics for a just transition to climate neutrality • Apply the circular economy model to incentivise new business models without the inherent waste, inefficiency and damage of our linear one. Further refine indicators of economic development which improve and complement GDP and provide better guides for policymakers, investors and citizens with regards to their prosperity. Make more use of smarter and more holistic metrics such as the 'material footprint' used by Eurostat, which should become a key element of the semester process. • Shift risk to lower carbon investments. After the sustainable finance agenda is agreed, implement the High-Level Expert Group’s recommendations, apply it in capital markets and strengthen the Accounting and NonFinancial Reporting Directives. Lastly, extend them to trade agreements and to the application of state aid policy to enable new public/private financing models. • Mobilise and better direct public finance. The next Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) must confirm a high proportion of climate mainstreaming. All remaining subsidies and lending by the EIB and other financial institutions to high carbon and fossil fuel projects should be reviewed for consistency with immediate action towards the mid-century goal, especially infrastructure investments. • Revisit the question of a carbon tax at EU level for a just transition, with a view to ensuring that re-distribution of revenues is fair across and within member states, especially given the need for increased structural funding for some regions in transition. Take a 360-degree approach to EU peace, security and defence • Appoint a Commissioner for Peace, Security and Defense. Improve the coordination and accountability of initiatives to pool together and share capabilities. Exploit new technologies to enhance and maximise the opportunity presented by the EU’s commitment of billions of research and development finances to define and maintain an autonomous industry base. • Clarify and agree the purpose and role of the EU’s collective and collaborative approach both within Europe and its global strategy. Communicate 12 scope of relevant articles of the Lisbon Treaty regarding solidarity and mutual assistance among member states. Defining the possible scenarios and practical implications of these articles could help the EU to be better prepared for crises through a combination of Europewide contingency planning and cross-border response teams. This would apply to crises below the threshold of conventional armed attacks (covered by NATO’s Article 5 provision) and focus instead on hybrid campaigns, cyber intrusions, terrorism, pandemics and natural disasters and all types of civil emergencies. Citizen entrepreneurs • Facilitate access to low-level funding for entrepreneurs who want to tackle social and societal challenges such as old age, climate change, education and migration. Enable experimentation within large government organisations to find more efficient and effective ways of delivering their services. This should foster the creation of European citizen entrepreneur networks for all – an Erasmus for citizen entrepreneurs. Recognise and promote developing the economic potential inherent in migration. Create the future: Foster innovation and scale up investment in key technologies • Energy transition: Invest in necessary top-down Infrastructures such as smart grid, energy storage, telecom networks but also foster direct incentives for citizens. Involve citizens as users and co-creators in the development of new energy models and use innovative financing techniques, such as crowdfunding and impact investment (i.e. investing in bodies whose primary objectives are not purely financial). This would also enable low-income households to participate in energy savings, from which they are excluded today. • Disruptive technologies: Enable more risktaking in the development of new breakthrough technologies to catch up with other regions across the globe. The technology fields include Energy storage, Space, AI and Neurotech. • Platform technologies: Instead of supporting the creation of individual companies, which always benefits the private sector, we propose to develop broad platform technologies that enable entrepreneurs to create new economic success stories. • Growth funding: Encourage the creation of private sector financing for growth companies, given that it is currently lacking in Europe. For example, allowing life insurance companies to invest an increasing, albeit small, fraction of their assets in growth technology companies which would immediately allow European startups to stay independent as opposed to being sold to US or Asian acquirers. 13 Historically, those who call the shots in Europe have been its member states and institutions, not its citizens. Yet without the greater and more effective involvement of citizens, the European Union is condemned to fail. The Yellow Vests movement and global school climate strikes are evidence of citizens’ growing impatience with being left out of the decisionmaking process. As deep societal transformations and technological developments nurture greater expectations among citizens for political participation, the EU has no choice but to become more participatory and collaborative. But its rigid and narrow institutional framework – combined with its lack of commitment and imagination when it comes to creating innovative means of encouraging participation – doesn’t make that easy. This is epitomised by the most recent European Citizens’ Consultations – the first pan-European participatory project that would involve citizens in the debate about the future of the continent1 – that being organised along jurisdictional line as opposed to a pan-EU conversation failed. The EU derives its legitimacy not only from representative democracy (directly from the European Parliament and indirectly from the Council and Commission), but also from participatory democracy – or so it should. However, its participatory toolbox, which includes public consultations, European Citizen 1 For an initial assessment, Paul Butcher and Corina Stratulat, The European Citizens' Consultations - Evaluation report, 16 November 2018. The outcomes of the consultations will be discussed at the European Council in December 2018. Initiatives (ECIs) and petitions to the European Parliament, remains little-known, under-used and fundamentally misaligned with society’s participatory expectations. This reductionist vision of the role of citizens in European affairs shows that national governments and EU institutions are still sceptical of citizens’ ability to contribute to decision-making beyond the ballot box—despite rhetoric to the contrary. It’s time for the EU to urgently embrace an entirely new participatory paradigm that puts citizens at the forefront of agenda setting and power monitoring. A citizen-driven Europe, oriented around the principle of power-sharing, must be reflected in both the day-to-day operations of the Union and in its overall long-term vision. Given the complexity of the EU institutional apparatus, it is unrealistic to expect citizens to be fluent in its workings before they even have a chance to voice their opinions. Therefore, any meaningful attempt to make this work requires a drastic simplification of institutional operations. It is, however, possible to do so without embarking on complex institutional reforms. A new EU participatory agenda could instead be established through inter-institutional decisionmaking to integrate existing avenues of participation and amplify their collective power. Power-sharing may make it easier to channel citizens’ pluralistic and diverse input into the political conversation PART 1: The Building Blocks Power-Sharing as the New Governing Principle for a Citizen-Driven Union Alberto Alemanno, EU Law Professor HEC, Founder of the Good Lobby and European Young Leader 14 and bring citizens closer to their representatives— and they may be able to do this between elections and across countries.2 Unleashing participatory democracy in the EU means breaking the agenda-setting monopoly enjoyed by the institutional apparatus, most notably by the European Commission and the European Council. Only an accessible, intuitive and safe space that can accommodate public input on a daily basis will bring the EU to terms with its own scepticism. By streamlining all public input directed to any EU institution, a European Question Time (EQT) with the relevant citizens on stage might crystallise and unite the daily and local realities of Europeans with the day-to-day operation of their institutions. A European People Assembly comprised of randomly selected citizens from all over the Union, consulted on a regular basis by the three EU institutional policymakers, would further contribute to this objective by humanising and trans-nationalising EU decision-making. Both the EQT and the Assembly would force EU policymakers to be routinely exposed to public input from all corners of Europe. This would, in turn, foster Europe-centric debate on matters of common interest across the continent. More critically—given the resulting public salience of the issues debated— these power-sharing mechanisms would strengthen the incentives for the EU institutions and European representatives to respond thoughtfully to public input. While this framework would not magically fix Europe’s accountability deficit, it could make the system more responsive to citizen-driven issues and eventually make the system more accessible. More significantly, its implementation would mark a change in the EU institutional attitude on the role of citizens in the Union. 2 For a new model of citizen participation beyond elections, see Alberto Alemanno, Lobbying for Change: Find Your Voice to Create a Better Society (Icon Books, 2017). To thrive, this simplified, revamped participatory framework will require a set of supportive measures to level the playing field with other interests, so as to build a pan-European power-sharing civic ‘grid’, an infrastructure for local and transnational citizen engagement. This would replace the existing and old-fashioned European Economic Social Council and Committee of the Regions. To improve civic literacy and build civic capacity, citizens must benefit from a range of supportive actions, such as: • civic time off, enabling citizens to focus on civic engagement beyond voting during their work hours; • ‘citizen lobbying aid’, a form of advocacy assistance modelled on the system of legal aid; • opening up parliamentary research services —such as the European Parliament Research Service—to support grassroots campaigners in need of advocacy advice; • skill-sharing advocacy platforms, which provide legal and advocacy pro-bono support to citizens, grassroots groups and NGOs; and • lobbying stimuli, encouraging the provision of tax breaks or subsidies to citizens to help them support the causes they care deeply about. Power-sharing would not only increase access by multiplying the opportunities for citizens to participate in problem-solving but would also reverse the current EU power structure by putting citizens first. Europe could and should become a leader in promoting and achieving a citizen-driven, powersharing model of governance to renew itself and set the standard for other regions. 15 Sad but true: if we continue at our current pace, you and I will most likely not live to see the day that power is distributed equally among men and women. From politics to business, from academia to media, it’s still a (white, straight, able, middleaged) man’s world, and it will continue to be - if we don’t do anything about it. There is not one single EU member state where women earn as much as men or are represented equally in senior management roles or positions of political power. And there is not one single EU member state where men spend as much time in unpaid care as women.1 Even one century after women earned the right to vote in many countries across Europe, women still remain hugely under-represented in most European institutions. Only 36% of high-ranking civil servants at the European Commission are women. The European Commission currently has only nine female Commissioners – out of 28. And only 271 of the 751 Members of the European Parliament are women. A snail’s pace ‘We are moving forward at a snail’s pace,’ said Virginija Langbakk, Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) at the launch of the 2017 Gender Equality Index. ‘In some areas, the gaps are even bigger than ten years ago.’ For years, the various European institutions have issued numerous policy documents, papers and proposals on the promotion of gender equality; 1 Gender Equality Index 2017 − Measuring gender equality in the European Union 2005-2015, European Institute for Gender Equality, 2017 2 Economic Benefits of Gender Equality in the EU, European Institute for Gender Equality, 2017 3 For example: Gender Diversity and Corporate Performance, Crédit Suisse Research Institute, 2012 4 World Development Report 2012: Gender and Equality, World Bank, 2012 5 The State of Food and Agriculture: Women in Agriculture, Closing the Gender Gap for Development, FAO, 2011 from the European Commission’s 2012 directive on improving the gender balance among nonexecutive directors of companies to the Council’s 2010 European Pact for Gender Equality, both of which aimed to ‘promote women’s empowerment in political and economic life’. And the list keeps growing. But the gender gap is by no means shrinking. Indeed, in some cases, it has been quite the reverse. The Dutch parliament has only 46 female members today; there were 64 in 2010. Time has run out. Europe needs to take gender equality seriously and make equal representation a reality instead of a priority on paper. We simply cannot afford not to. The smart thing to do Investing in gender equality is not only the right thing to do, it is also the smart thing to do. A growing body of research underlines why representation matters. For starters, representation matters because gender equality is good for the economy. It leads to job creation and increased GDP per capita.2 But that’s not all. Companies with mixed boards perform better and prove to be more stable during times of crisis.3 The introduction of quotas for women in local government increases female leadership and can even influence policy outcomes, as shown by research in India.4 And if female farmers had equal access to land, information, education, technology and power, their produce would increase by up to 40% more - and the number of hungry people could be reduced by 100-150 million.5 United in Diversity: Why Representation Matters Kirsten van den Hul, Member of Parliament for the Dutch Partij van de Arbeid, former Dutch Women’s Representative to the UN, author of (S)hevolution, and European Young Leader 16 The fall of the Berlin Wall inaugurated the belief in liberal democracy and subsequently helped it rise to an all-time high. There was a sense of hope that destructing the symbol of a divided continent would help Europe come together. It was in Maastricht that European leaders convened to establish the framework for the future of an integrated Europe based on a common social contract. The philosophy underpinning the European project was that economic integration would lead to political integration in Europe – neither of these fully materialised. Looking back, Europe has developed differently from the way many had hoped. The imagined peace, freedom, openness and democratic vibrancy of the political union have not taken place as planned, despite the improved quality of life for Europeans. More recently – similarly to 9/11 putting an end to state security as we knew it – the global financial crisis became the landmark for the end of economic security. In the decade since, multiple other foreign and domestic crises followed, such as the spread of terrorist attacks in Europe, hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming to Europe, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the ongoing civil wars in Syria, Libya and Iraq. Despite this, the EU has become the fourth largest trading bloc and it is recognised as a region with a strong and attractive social contract for citizens, even in comparison to other regions with similar preconditions. The EU has been more successful than others in converting average economic growth into social progress and inclusive growth. Moreover, it has made the political and business case for acting on climate change and has made a virtue of its funding to accelerate skills development, innovation in science and technologies, rights and equality. It has been an engine for peace based on the principles of cooperation and diplomacy. Remarkably, the EU made it out of recession So, what are we waiting for? Any football fan will tell you: you can’t win a match with 11 left footed strikers. And yet, that’s exactly who we have on the pitch today. It’s time to get women off the bench and into the game. Or else, we’re destined to lose. Big time. We need to step it up – now – and this is how we do it: • Make it stick. Enough talking about gender equality; it’s time to act. European institutions (and companies, media outlets and political parties), should introduce gender quotas to ensure equal representation. The European Electoral Act could also require quotas for European Parliament. In fact, the European Parliament has called for this option6 , but it was rejected by the Council (and not taken into account in the 2018 reforms). • Make it safe. Female employees should be able to work without fear of sexism, harassment or violence. This includes elected officials. The vast majority of European female MPs deals with psychological violence, rape or death threats, or online sexist attacks. One in four suffers from sexual violence.7 Equal representation means safety for all. Investigation mechanisms need to be widely available for women to voice their complaints. So do clear cut sanctions for perpetrators. 6 European Parliament resolution of 11 November 2015 on the reform of the electoral law of the EU 7 Sexism, harassment and violence against women in parliaments in Europe, IPU, 2018 • Make it count. Collect more gender-specific data, so progress (or, God forbid, the lack thereof) can be closely monitored and compared. This should include data on different (and sometimes overlapping) inequalities such as the representation of women with disabilities, women of colour or LGBTI women. • Make it visible. Showcase the careers of women, people of colour, LGBTI persons, people with disabilities in European institutions. Share their stories. Make sure kids learn their names in school. Europe needs more diverse role models. After all, you can’t be what you can’t see. • Make it a priority. If we are to be truly united in diversity, as the European motto goes, Europe first needs to reflect its diversity. That means: addressing its democratic deficit by addressing equal representation as a core issue. That is not a nice-to-have, but a must-have. Why? Because it’s 2019. We’ve waited long enough. 17 How can we improve European governance? Not by setting up new institutions or changing the Treaty, as some politicians and think tanks have proposed. No, European governance can be improved with one simple measure: the appointment by all member states of a deputy Prime Minister in charge of Europe – and Europe alone. Let’s turn to the European governance structure first. It works reasonably well. The problem lies in the European Council’s lack of responsibility within that structure. The EU is a federal system. Just like the United States or Germany, the EU has a federal political executive body: the European Commission. It also has democratic control applied by two representations, one for the states (the Council of Ministers, just like the Senate or the Bundesrat) and one for the people (the European Parliament, the equivalent of the House of Representatives or the Bundestag). Moreover, the EU has a federal judiciary in addition to controlling bodies such as the Court of Auditors – just like any other federal system. Most importantly, perhaps, this system approves laws that apply directly to citizens and can be invoked in national courts. Most citizens don’t realise this. Why? The United States’ political history is one of permanent power struggles between the States and the Federation. Nevertheless, State capitols always acknowledged that the Federation itself should be a powerful entity, respected for its virtues, values and might. The States had a common interest in propping up the federal political entity that they themselves had created. This never happened in Europe. EU member states realise they are too small to individually tackle the big issues of our time – defence, the environment, migration. But they are also unwilling to give those at the federal level enough power to deal with them. Governance in Europe has the shape of a pyramid. There are four levels: municipal, regional, national and European. Each level has its own tasks and responsibilities. But the national level commands the most attention: member states actually hold the most power at the European level. This creates imbalances and dysfunction in the common system. Europeans do not generally question this dominance. But imagine if US State Governors or Prime Ministers of German Länder were deciding on national laws and the national budget, sometimes with a veto in hand. If this were the case, the national governments of Germany and the US would be weak. Regional leaders are elected on the basis of preserving regional interests – the national level would not be their priority. Under such a system, Germany and the US would be very different countries now. But in the European Union, this is precisely how we do things. Most European institutions are functioning well. The European Commission, the executive branch, proposes and implements. The Parliament is slowly finding its voice as the representative for European Issues of Purpose, Structure and Focus: A Vice Prime Minister, Only for Europe Caroline de Gruyter, Author and EU Correspondent at NRC Handelsblad 18 citizens. The problem actually lies with the Council, which keeps a tight grip on all European matters, while at the same time blaming the federation for mediocre outcomes. National politicians have no interest in the EU being fully successful. They do not long for a total failure of the project - they are all a part of the system, after all – but they don’t want it to be a resounding success either, as that could eat too deep into their own power. Ministers deciding on new European asylum laws, to reference a pressing example, have only their national interest in mind. That is legitimate: it is what they were elected for. However, this situation prevents the EU from having the asylum policy it badly needs. It is easy to imagine a solution. Representatives in the Council should be elected directly by member states’ constituencies, while the European Parliament would be elected on the basis of panEuropean lists. Ideally, the European Council should be filled by senators, elected directly by voters who know that they are sending them to the federal capital to work both on their behalf and for the benefit of the larger whole. This solution is, of course, impossible to implement. Member states will not allow this to happen. It may be in the European interest - but they are not there for the European interest. As Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker once said, when he was Prime Minister, “We all know what to do [in Europe], we just don't know how to get re-elected after we've done it.” So, what can be done? First, national politicians need to acknowledge the problem and recognise in good faith what needs to be done at the European level. For decades, they have enjoyed a monopoly on the communication on European matters, leading to the perception that the EU is no more than a cooperation between states. It is no wonder that they keep their discussions in the Council shrouded in secrecy. Second, member states and national politicians must stop trying to suppress a Europe-wide political debate. They must accept and encourage the direct connection between citizens and European institutions - not systematically weaken it - as is now the case. There is a direct connection between European laws and citizens. For democratic control to work properly, the same direct connection must exist between citizens and the legislative process. This is already the case for one branch of the European legislative system, the European Parliament, even if much more must be done to make it visible. But it is not the case for the Council of Ministers, which remains entangled in national interests. This has led to either half-baked compromises or paralysis. Since nobody explains to citizens where the real cause of this lies, they are convinced that the system itself is faulty. They blame it on too much integration. Yet the real cause is the resistance of member states inside the system. Thirdly, national governments must appoint a deputy Prime Minister in charge of European affairs to coordinate internally and negotiate in Brussels. The current ministers of European affairs, where they exist, are junior ministers, often under the authority of the Foreign Minister (as if European issues were foreign issues). A deputy PM would have significant sway over developments, and visibility. Member states would send that person to represent them at the General Affairs Council, which would also gain clout and visibility as a last step before the heads of state and government meet in the European Council. This evolution can take place quickly, without holding big conferences, setting up new institutions or changing the Treaty. One simple appointment is enough. 19 Each government would then have a powerful member without a national portfolio, free to focus on interests broader than those of a national ministry. All deputy PMs for Europe would work more closely together than ministers can do now, who have part of a country to run. This would make European governance more widely identifiable and would clarify responsibilities. It would give increased visibility to European discussions. It would help the creation of a European political space and increase the legitimacy of European decisions. In a world where the potential impact of European decisions, or of their absence, is so important, such an apparently modest – but doable - institutional evolution would be a very good thing. 20 In terms of classic economic indicators, Europe, when compared to the other industrialised regions, has fallen behind in the areas of growth, employment, spending on R&D and innovation. But when one looks at prosperity in a broader, more inclusive sense, Europe is not doing so badly, as evidenced by various indicators like the Legatum Index. There is no room for complacency, however. The increasing inequalities between EU member countries pose a serious threat to the cohesion of Europe and the nation states of which it is composed. These inequalities, often seen as part of the North-South divide, manifest themselves in the stark differences between unemployment levels and the state of public finances. Within member states, inequality has also been rising steadily. Economies that are founded on the increasing returns that derive from digital platform businesses such as Google, Facebook and Amazon further drive wealth concentration. The resulting inequality that separates the well-educated happy few from the growing mass of people who do not directly benefit from technology-driven productivity gains is one that highlights the need for an urgent call to action. Years of reduction in public spending for education, housing, and healthcare for those at the lower end of society have not made things any easier. Furthermore, technological and demographic changes necessitate a fundamental transformation in the structure of our social security and healthcare models. The impact of AI and robotisation on the labour market will profoundly change the nature of work, and we are only at the very beginning of this revolution. Furthermore, Europe is at the forefront of the battle for climate change, seeing itself as a leader in meeting the agreed upon emissions targets. Turning this ambition into reality is undeniably a daunting prospect, but it is one that provides an incredible opportunity for renewal and prosperity for the 21st century. In sum, prosperity and growth are simultaneously the key ingredients and the desired outcomes of the European economic way of life. Transforming and adapting this way of life to the new realities of the world will require a savvy mix of traditional economic policies and new approaches which will ultimately impact the underlying non-economic drivers of long-term prosperity. We have defined five dimensions for inclusive prosperity in Europe. We suggest developing objectives for European prosperity and measuring their long-term impact along the following five dimensions: • GDP growth • Inclusiveness • Tackling climate change • Empowering citizens across the whole of Europe • Quality of life PART 2: The Policy Tool-Box Prosperity for European way of life in the 21st Century Europe needs more streamlined growth to transform its way of life Jakob Haesler, Founder of Project Alloy and European Young Leader 21 The time horizon for these objectives needs to be taken into consideration. The kind of transformation that is needed for these objectives to be fulfilled will need more time than the amount allotted by a typical election cycle. As a result, long-term goals must to be broken down into more practical, shortterm ones, facilitating governmental engagement and making it easier for politicians to formulate concrete policies. Our policy recommendations intend to energise the European economy. We want to harness the opportunities created by climate change by empowering citizens to be responsible consumers, innovators and entrepreneurs. We want to support them with the frameworks, infrastructure and investments they need to create sustainable and inclusive prosperity. Ultimately, engagement and prosperity go hand in hand, while strengthening citizens’ role as political actors in the process. 1. Create the future: Foster innovation and scale up investment in key technologies centered around energy transition, disruptive technologies and broad digital platforms that serve as springboards for innovative companies and approaches. • Energy transition: Invest in necessary topdown Infrastructures such as smart grid, energy storage, telecom networks but also foster direct incentives for citizens. Involve citizens as users and co-creators in the development of new energy models and use innovative financing techniques such as crowdfunding and impact investment (i.e., investing whose primary objectives is not purely financial). This would also enable low-income households to participate in energy savings, from which they are excluded today. • Disruptive technologies: Enable more risk-taking in the development of new breakthrough technologies to catch up with other regions across the globe. The technology fields include Energy storage, Space, AI, Neurotech. • Platform technologies: Instead of supporting the creation of individual companies, which the private sector does very well, we propose to develop broad platform technologies that enable entrepreneurs to create new economic success stories. • Growth funding: Encourage the creation of private sector financing for growth companies which is lacking today in Europe. For example, allowing life insurance companies to invest an albeit small but increasing fraction of their assets in growth technology companies would immediately allow to keep European startups independent rather than selling them to US or Asian acquirers. 2. Transform the system: Re-set the economic and social frameworks that underpin our specific economic system based on fair taxation, family-/ privately owned business and a transformed welfare state. • Fairer taxation: Create a transparent common European tax framework that allows citizens at the national levels to compare their tax regimes and thus allow over time to make more informed political choices. Introduce destination taxation for digital businesses (comparable to the EU commission proposal for digital corporate tax). While tax policies are mostly national, Europe should advocate a simple, progressive income tax with a 22 broad base (enabling to lower the rates) and few exceptions. Uphold the idea of tax competition for productive units between countries and regions but eliminate the artificial, purely corporate profit-based holding optimization (end of the Dutch/Irish sandwich). • Economic policies to strengthen the private sector, particularly, family/private owned businesses and entrepreneurs: Create a European label for sustainability. Reflect the need for social sector companies in addition to cooperatives. Enable efficient transfers of SME family/private businesses to new owners/generations, recognizing the crucial roles these businesses play for European prosperity. Acknowledge the role of a supporting regional and local banking system instead of only supporting the creation of large cross-border players. Recognize the globalized competition which our very large European companies are facing today, and ensure that our regulatory approaches reflect these realities properly. • Re-invent the welfare state: Embrace the new way to work and transform the labor market to reflect the technology revolution, the transition to a low-carbon economy, demographic changes and migratory flows. Continue supporting better integration of public and private sector collaboration on training and job creation, particularly to stimulate STEM and entrepreneurial skills. For each worker, create a European lifelong-learning account that can seamlessly “travel” across Europe. Finalize the implementation of the European Social Pillar. Lay the ground for a future, voluntary harmonization of national social security frameworks by making them comparable (analogous to the tax suggestion above). • Re-invent health care to tackle demographic change: Aggressively fund new models that comprehensively tackle key areas such as local medical coverage and digital health in order to increase productivity of the health care sector, to face the growing elderly and other populations in need. 3. Empower Citizens entrepreneurs to address the key social and societal issues at hand: old age, climate change, education, migration. Facilitate access to low-level funding for entrepreneurs who want to tackle social and societal challenges. Enable experimentation within large government organizations to find more efficient and effective ways of delivering government services. This should foster the creation of European citizen entrepreneur networks for all – an Erasmus for citizen entrepreneurs. Recognize and promote developing the economic potential inherent in migration. Europe needs to find innovative yet pragmatic ways to test, compare and implement new policies that do not require treaty changes. We are aware that the locus of decision-making within the European Union is a topic that continues to spark debate between member states and the EU institutions. We believe that measures requiring treaty change are impossible to envision for at least the coming five years and should not be aggressively pursued other than by a coalition of the willing. This leads us to suggest the following 3 principles for implementing our policy recommendations on prosperity: • No new treaties. • Lay the groundwork for flexible harmonisation in the mid-to long-term. We do not believe that 23 harmonisation should be driven top-down. However, in order to be effective, citizens need to be better informed with a simple structural comparison of the key features of a nation’s economy (it comes on top of the European Semester, a procedure to address issues mostly in terms of indicators/outcome variables). Citizens can thus directly compare their situation to that of fellow citizens in other EU countries and take more educated decisions at all political levels. In other words, put in place a system that will allow for flexible convergence, bottom-up, in each nation state. • Trial and error: The classic top-down way of implementing economic programmes needs to be complemented by bottomup experimentation. Rather than deciding beforehand on a unique way, we need to test options in a transparent way, thereby leveraging the diversity of approaches across Europe and, again, enabling learning for politicians and officials but also citizens. Introduce trial and error for all EU-funded programs and create an “Economic Lab-Europe” to test ideas for new economic and social policies in quick cycles, similar to what Finland has done with its testing of the negative income tax. 24 European defence is at a crossroads. Never before have the arguments in favour of a more integrated and more effective European defence effort seemed more compelling. The security environment around Europe - whether from the east or the south - has deteriorated sharply, bringing a more diverse set of threats and challenges. These range from high end military attack to hybrid campaigns and to humanitarian disasters such as the recent surge of migration. The United States, for so many decades the indispensable ally, has become less predictable, and therefore less reliable. Nevertheless, NATO is not in any immediate danger of disappearing and the Europeans know only too well that they still need the United States to ward off the big military threats. Yet these are not normal times. Bilateral ties can take priority over working in and through multilateral institutions. The US is concerned that some European countries are not standing up to Russia with sufficient vigour, especially when it comes to energy deals and financial investments. Furthermore, American demands on Europe to actively join in their effort to contain China’s “disruptive” power and divest their stakes in Chinese technology and infrastructure projects, are already becoming more strident. Is Europe willing and able to take sides in such a future US-China confrontation when its prosperity and security depend on maintaining good ties with both these 21st century giants? In the light of the burden sharing debate and transatlantic disagreements over a whole host of issues - from trade to Iran - US and European commentators alike have written streams of articles claiming that the Alliance is already broken. This is exaggerated. NATO has shown a remarkable ability to survive transatlantic tensions, whether over Vietnam, detente, nuclear weapons, Bosnia or Iraq – and will remain a keystone of Europe’s defence for many years to come. Despite Trump’s disengagement, the Pentagon has done a solid job in buttressing the Alliance with extra forces in Poland, new investments in pre-positioned equipment, command structures and military exercises in Europe. A wise European leader, interpreting these contradictory signals but also looking realistically at the security threats crowding in on Europe from the East and the South, would conclude that this is indeed the moment for a real and determined push to build a more effective European defence capability. This is now urgent for a number of reasons: • To ensure long term support for NATO in the US, especially in the more isolationist and America First circles, by demonstrating that Europe can provide significant firepower and force projection capacity to the common defence - whether in Europe or beyond. • To give Europeans a full spectrum of options to act in those circumstances where the US prefers to stand aside. • To defend Europe in the first phase of an attack - while waiting for the bulk of US reinforcements to arrive on the scene. • To hedge against a longer term and negative scenario in which the US turns its back on NATO or becomes so involved in contingencies Piecing Together Security for A Stronger Europe Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe and former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges 25 in Asia that it is no longer able to underpin adequate deterrence and military defence in Europe. Already the Pentagon has announced a reduction of its troops in Africa from where many of Europe’s future security challenges will emanate. • To support the EU’s vision of multilateralism and the international liberal order which will require it to have rapid response, training and capacity building capabilities to support peacekeeping and interventions by the United Nations and the African Union, as well as counter-terrorism, humanitarian and disaster relief operations. Notwithstanding the recurrent US rhetoric about the EU’s defence initiatives or the vision of a European army being inspired by distrust of the US or a desire to exclude it from European defence markets, a stronger and more militarily capable Europe will be in the longer term a more attractive partner to Washington. One more able to influence US policy where common action is in the interest of both sides but also, where necessary, to promote Europe’s interests when the US is absent or even acting against EU positions and values, as in the recent US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Yet if the rationale for a leap forward in European defence integration is stronger than ever, the ghosts that have stymied this effort in the past are still lurking in the shadows. First is the position of the US which wants greater European spending, capabilities and efforts but not the institutional reforms (such as a stronger role for the Brussels EU institutions and the EU CSDP) that a successful pooling and sharing of resources and a functional EU defence technology and industrial base require. US reticence or notions of NATO first are always good excuses for those EU members who recoil from greater European defence integration to hide behind. Second is the traditional leadership of France and Germany which is indispensable for success but which makes other EU members feel marginalised and subject to a condominium. Brexit may well reinforce this sentiment. Moreover, while France and Germany aspire to lead the effort (as recently in the Treaty of Aachen), they frequently have very different concepts of both the finality and the means. We have seen this in recent years in disagreements over the membership and objectives of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), arms export licences for Saudi Arabia for commonly produced military equipment and French willingness to pursue efforts (such as the European Intervention Initiative) with non-EU countries outside the Brussels institutions. The UK has never been helpful to specifically European endeavours outside the transatlantic framework since the early debates on the European Defence Community in the 1950s. It is an open question whether the post-Brexit UK will become more cooperative as a way of re-engaging with the EU or more obstructionist as it tries to boost the role of NATO and comes under greater US influence. Finally, the enlargement of the EU and NATO has brought into the frame many Atlanticist countries, suspicious of Russia and of European security guarantees, lukewarm regarding further EU defence integration, and looking first and foremost to the US (even more than NATO) to underwrite their defence. The spectre of Rumsfeld’s Old Europe versus New Europe is returning and can only be exacerbated by disputes between Brussels and Eastern European member states over democracy, the rule of law and compliance with EU norms and values. The new EU leadership will need to steer the endeavour with determination and vision but also a degree of political skill and inclusiveness that has often been lacking in the past. The Franco-German tandem (as Merkel departs the scene) needs to be more united and consistent in the common 26 vision that it is propounding and take the hard decisions for instance on industry mergers and consolidation, arms exports and the development of future capabilities such as the 6th generation future air combat system. Yet, at the same time, it will need to better reach out to like-minded partners and build a core group to sustain this effort politically and financially over the long term. The ten current members of the European Intervention Initiative who are trying to forge a common strategic culture could supply most of the EU members of the core group. This group will need to engage the UK post-Brexit, draw in the common air, naval and expeditionary capabilities being developed by the Northern Group while reaching out to the more sceptical east Europeans. They need to understand better the pitfalls of over-relying on the US as a sole source security provider and the utility of EU security and defence solidarity. This can be particularly true of responding to hybrid attacks, safeguarding sovereignty in the critical infrastructure and technology sectors or harvesting the benefits of EU defence related research and development from the European Defence Fund, PESCO and other common programmes. The group will also need to do a better job of selling the need for, and the achievements of European defence cooperation to Washington. The following recommendations encapsulate those things that we need to watch out for in the second half of the year to verify that the EU’s progress is not falling behind the deteriorating internal and external security environment. 1. The new EU leadership needs to develop a clear mission statement and public narrative, endorsed by an EU Summit, on the rationale for more EU defence cooperation. The public is not aware of EDF, PESCO, CARD, MPCC or E2I. Talking about a European Army produces largely dismissive reactions, as much within Europe as beyond, and takes the attention away from what Europeans need to do now. The concept also means too many different things to too many different people to be helpful. Some see European Defence as an alternative to NATO. Is it the same as the defence of Europe? An aim or merely a capability? Is it part of NATO or separate? How can it help to preserve the Alliance? The EU has plunged into initiatives to develop and pool capabilities without producing a clear level of ambition nor a link between the forces required and the missions they are intended to carry out. The effort instead, needs to be grounded in the risks and threats and Europe’s security deficits. The narrative should incentivise and guide Europe’s own efforts, while explaining how key partners in Washington, Ottawa, London, Oslo and Ankara will benefit - and how they can contribute if they so wish. 2. The EU Global Strategy of 2016 has put the oft cited notion of EU “strategic autonomy” into play but without defining what it means or entails. Is it to enable the EU to perform by itself all of the defence and security tasks of NATO, or do a peace enforcement mission on the scale of Bosnia, Kosovo or Libya without US enablers and logistics? Once the level of ambition has been agreed, as a concrete translation of strategic autonomy, EU military planners need to draw up a catalogue of the forces, readiness levels and reserve pool required to resource these missions. A gap analysis can indicate what the EU currently has in its military inventory, what it is planning to procure and which new capability programmes need to be launched, and in which timeframe, to fill the shortfalls and ensure the continuing modernisation of EU member state forces. This will be a twenty-year effort given European budgets, duplication and long lead times for major weapons programmes so it is all the more urgent to start now. 27 3. A Commissioner for Defence and Security could be appointed in the new Commission to oversee the defence technology industrial base, the EDF and PESCO as well as cyber and security related information technology. PESCO and the European Defence Fund are useful initiatives to better pool and share capabilities and to develop and exploit new technologies such as AI, drones, robotics and bio-engineering. Yet they represent bottom up initiatives by EU member states which are useful if they serve to fill the minimum military requirements of EU planners but less useful if they represent collaborative effort for its own sake not linked to short term gaps or longer-term priorities of the CSDP. The new EU leadership will need to monitor the current 34 PESCO projects closely and be ready to nudge them along if the momentum slows. The European Defence Agency also needs to be brought closer to the Commission to work “en bonne intelligence”. There has been some opposition to these ideas but some re-organisation of structures and portfolios is clearly needed. The aim is to have a more top down approach that encourages member states to form consortia for EU funding to deliver the key requirements in more innovative and cost-effective ways. The more urgent the requirement, the greater the percentage of common funding that can be allocated. The Commission, the External Action Service and the European Defence Agency should work together to see how a European DARPA can be established to foster experimentation and link commercial innovation to defence exploitation along the lines of the successful US agency. The French MOD has recently set up such an agency at national level. To provide strategic direction the EU Defence Ministers should meet monthly in a formal Ministerial Council, as their counterparts from Foreign Affairs have been doing for many years already. 4. To bring EU defence closer to the citizens of EU member states, the new EU leadership should work with the core group of committed countries to define the scope of articles 42.7 and 222 of the Lisbon Treaty regarding solidarity and mutual assistance among the member states. 42.7 was invoked for the first time by France following the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, but the follow up was haphazard which gave the French initiative symbolic significance rather than concrete added value. Yet defining the possible scenarios and practical implications of these two articles could help the EU to be better prepared for crises by doing Europe wide contingency planning and having cross-border response teams. This would apply essentially to crises below the threshold of conventional armed attack (covered by NATO’s Article 5 provision) and focus on hybrid campaigns, cyber intrusions, terrorism, pandemics and natural disasters and all types of civil emergencies. 5. The UK represents today around 25 percent of EU defence spending and 20 percent of EU forces. It will be post-Brexit a key part of the defence of Europe with its battlegroup in Estonia, ships in the Baltic and the Black Sea, and Royal Marines in Norway even if it is no longer part of European Defence. It will also be a global player (at least in the medium term) with its place on the UN Security Council, nuclear weapons and advance defence industries and technology and research base. It also retains an interventionist culture, at least in its armed forces (the willingness of the UK Parliament to use it as we saw in Syria is another matter). If the UK doubles down on NATO with extra contributions to prove its European credentials post Brexit, paradoxically the EU will also benefit. The UK was never an enthusiast for the CSDP during its years as a member state although it seemed to be warming to it towards the end, and until very recently commanded the EU Atalanta operation in the Gulf of Aden from s headquarters north of 28 London (it has now been handed over to Spain). The UK also joined the EU Sophia mission in the central Mediterranean. If the UK can be closely associated with the CSDP it is bound to have greater political as well as military clout. Traditionally the EU has been reluctant to grant third party states a special status giving access to consultation and planning in exchange for substantial contributions. Yet this could be granted in a future EU-UK Security and Defence Treaty which is provided for in the Political Declaration on the Future Relationship. The UK can contribute its forces as well as intelligence, cyber, counter-terrorism, diplomatic and economic resources to the EU while benefiting from participation in PESCO, the EDF, the E2I and high-tech programmes such as the Galileo satellite encrypted signal and future aircraft design. It would be much better if UK industry spends its billions of investment money on strengthening EU capabilities rather than on duplicating them in rival efforts at home. The UK is already part of a number of bilateral and regional frameworks with France, the Netherlands and the Northern Group. These can help to tie the UK closer to EU operational planning and training and exercises through a dense and cross-cutting network of partnerships. President Macron has proposed the creation of a European Security Council with possible UK membership. The UK should also be invited to the meetings of EU Foreign and Defence Ministers on a regular and routine basis. Bold gestures are needed to incentivize the UK to fully engage in continental Europe rather than pursue delusions of global power projection and military bases on the five continents. After all, there is no threat to the UK which is not also a threat to the EU and vice-versa. 6. Finally, as the EU becomes a more capable and credible security actor, it will be useful for the EU to start thinking quietly but purposefully about how it can take on defence roles along its borders. For instance, EU Battle Groups could take up duty in the Baltics as part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence. The EU could generate maritime capability for the Black Sea and the Baltic as NATO has to focus on the North Atlantic lines of communication. The EU could consider how it could defend Finland and Sweden which are not covered by NATO’s guarantee but could be caught up quickly in a NATO-Russia confrontation. These efforts must be progressive and properly thought through and resourced (combat support and logistics) in close coordination with NATO; but they will have the merit of demonstrating EU solidarity with the eastern member states while also helping the US on burden sharing. In turn the willingness of the Eastern European states to engage in Africa and the South alongside France and the other Mediterranean allies will be the essential corollary to this new EU collective defence role and as part of a 360-degree approach. Otherwise the EU will need to somehow survive the 21st century as the world’s only power bloc that is both unable and unwilling to defend itself or promote its security interests beyond its borders. 29 There are positive signs and a legacy from the current five-year EU cycle which offers hope and a springboard for a bold EU mission for the coming years and a case for the EU to make climate neutrality and sustainable development central to it wider purpose. The European Commission’s vision and strategy for ‘A Clean Planet for All’ presented last November, along with the institutional innovations proposed in its recent assessment of its efforts on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), provide just such a broad launchpad, especially because they are coupled with, perhaps even driven by, deeper trends in politics and civic behaviour in the EU. There is a strong case from surveys, public demonstrations and consumer behaviour in Europe that we are witnessing growing momentum for real change, and a genuine desire for a new economic agenda, notably in response to climate change. This is clearly the case in Friends of Europe’s citizen poll, where environment and climate action are clearly seen as one of the areas in which there is a strong case for collective EU action – it placed in the top three policy priorities highlighted by citizens. And quite probably, there is now a greater political risk for the new EU institutions in not harnessing this and taking bold action than dismissing it as temporary or unrepresentative, and offering only timid policy responses. According to Eurobarometer, action on climate change by the EU maintains high and growing support, it is an area where international cooperation and collaboration are considered obvious and essential to European citizens from all member states. Politicians dismissing the incredibly rapid growth in support for the Youth for Climate campaign, initiated by the Swedish school-girl Greta Thunberg not only risk their own careers (and some have already paid that price), they miss the dynamic unleashed when a whole new generation realise that their futures are being decided today and expect their political representatives to take much bolder action on it. The new Extinction Rebellion movement of civil disobedience reflects similar sentiments of frustration and impatience, as its own rapid progress underlines. And the ‘gilets jaunes’ may have mobilised because of a deep sense of inequality and unfairness in fuel taxes, but they too want climate action – as long as it is ‘just’. No politician can ignore these political currents, however hard they are to navigate successfully... These public concerns are not exclusive to climate change: high profile campaigns on the extent of plastic production, consumption and pollution, notably in oceans, has struck a clear European consumer nerve, local air pollution from cars, power plants or building heating systems, are driving communities to demand bans on harmful products or processes, and vegan diets and digitally-enabled less materially-intense life-styles are rapidly changing demand for everything from new plant-based or insect-derived foods, to zero emission mobility solutions. Making Climate Neutrality and the SDGs the Galvanising Heart of a New Prosperity Agenda for Europe Martin Porter, Executive Chair at Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) 30 Consumers now have real choices for alternatives to high emission power or fuel. There are both desirable and affordable options when it comes to power from solar and wind sources, and storage technology, notably batteries for cars, has improved so rapidly and costs declined so quickly that it is now estimated to be cheaper to own a small electric vehicle than its ICE counterpart. It is clear that the EU’s agenda, its policy approach and specific packages of legislation, regulation, funding and other support has played a significant role in enabling this. Its ‘Clean Energy for All Europeans’, Clean Mobility packages, Sustainable finance initiatives and Investment Plans have advanced everything from the promotion of renewable energy, improved interconnections between the power grids, stricter emissions standards for cars and investment in energy and mobility innovation, including industrial capacity such as the battery alliance, and have all helped spur the combination of demand and supply for the new technologies, business models and consumer behaviour necessary for this to succeed. The economic case for the transition is stronger and clearer than ever. The Commission’s ‘Clean Planet for All’ strategy confirms that the two net zero emissions scenarios are those which are most positive for GDP growth, industrial development opportunities, employment increases, health and well-being for its citizens. But it also confirms the enormous investment needs, uneven impacts of transition across different regions or demographics, and need for transitional measures for businesses to enable them to compete in the current global market place whilst innovating for the transition. It underlines the need for social innovation that harnesses digital innovation and positive behavioural change rather than seeking ‘technological fixes’ which embed current practices. And it highlights the importance of addressing underlying drivers of demand and consumption rather than focusing predominantly on supply and production-oriented solutions. This can no longer be treated as a marginal or even parallel agenda to the mainstream economic development – it represents a shift to a new model of development, and as in previous eras where Europe has led global developments, Europe once again finds a historic responsibility. With an economic and environmental impact that is in relative decline due to the growth in other regions of the world, the ability of the EU to have continued global impact will be less through its diplomatic efforts on the Paris Agreement and SDGs, than in demonstrating a successful socio-economic model for the transition. And if it seizes the moment of opportunity available now, that model is condemned to succeed. Achieving climate neutrality no later than 2050 provides just the galvanising core for this agenda. Four priority initiatives for a new economic agenda for a climate neutral Europe: With such a broad, inter-connected and ambitious agenda to advance, and much innovative, bold and serious thinking available on different changes, initiatives and actions necessary, some framing of priorities is essential. For wider public understanding, the notion of a ‘New Green Deal’ may indeed be a very helpful way to package them together in an understandable way, and to relate the scale, urgency and benefit to citizens at large to a well-known and successful predecessor. The following priorities for innovation may contribute to this, and all are drawn from ideas already proposed by the Commission or its advisory bodies in some form, as well as the findings from Europe Matters, which seek to reconnect people in a positive way from across Europe to the EU and its mission and activities. 31 1. Re-organise institutions for immediate action around the long-term economic goal Such transformational and structural innovation requires both a clear direction as well as necessary pace for success, the essential starting point for the new EU institutions will be to confirm the ambition to achieve a climate neutral economy for Europe by mid-century at the latest. This should also include defining a European carbon budget, consistent with that. In a similar vein, to drive immediate investments in innovation and associated actions, there should also be a 2030 target of 55% emissions reductions and an immediate action plan for 2020-2025 which sets the EU on course to do this, along with the other 2030 SDGs, to which it must be intimately associated. Having done this, there must be a clear political signal given the importance of this agenda in the top three to five political priorities of the EU, and in the Commission in particular. With a clear economic focus, this should become central to the activities within the European Semester, with associated reporting and monitoring. Building on the success of the clustering approach of the current Commission, the first of five VicePresidents, would be appointed with responsibility for Climate Neutrality and Sustainability, with all relevant DGs working primarily to him/her. This would be consistent with options presented by the Commission in its assessment report on progress on the SDGs. The relevant DGs would include CLIMA and ENV, ENER, MOVE, AGRI and GROW and RTD, REGIO and SOCIAL. There is also a case that COMP and TRADE likewise work most closely within this cluster, depending on how other VPs are structured (around defence and foreign affairs, and security and home affairs, including digital issues, education and so on). With such a clear organisational priority and authority, shortterm initiatives across key areas would then be developed, in line broadly with the ‘Clean Planet for All’ agenda. In a sign that the Commission is already moving in this direction, the planned reform of DG Research around sustainability themes sends a strong signal that this integrated approach has much potential and deserves support. A similar set of institutional innovations could also be envisaged in the other EU institutions, so that the Parliament and the Council also reflect the political and organisational priority themselves, and can partner with the Commission in its development and implementation effectively. This would certainly also help to address the clear need for the EU to help Member States to focus on the way SDGs are properly implemented, enabling better understanding, peer-to-peer exchange, and more accountability for results from a stronger EUwide framework for these. To provide an independent reference point for its work, the IEEP has also proposed a European Sustainability Panel for Europe, similar in nature to the UN’s IPPC. This would comprise a panel of scientists reporting directly to the Council of ministers, addressing the different dimensions of sustainability, with a cross-disciplinary composition covering all sciences, and an ability to assess and recommend, producing reports on a regular basis which inform and drive EU policy. 2. An industrial strategy for climate neutrality and circular economy There is a combination of circumstances which now favours a stronger and more ambitious European industrial strategy, rather than coordinated national ones, and it is essential that this is developed and pursued with the same overarching climate neutral economy goal, even where it might focus on industries around AI, where huge potential for development and advantage 32 lie for Europe, as well as being a crucial potential enabler of more directly relevant industries from a climate neutrality perspective. Indeed, such a proposal is made clearly in the Commission’s Clean Planet for All communication. Key elements of such a strategy for Europe would be that it consider industrial activities in the context of their more circular value chains, and include not just resource and energy intensive industry segments (such as materials extraction and processing, such as steel, cement and chemicals) but also major associated manufacturing or construction industries, so linking to mobility, infrastructure and buildings, as well as to the bioeconomy, food, nutrition, and health value chains). The pervasive and enabling role of data and energy through-out all these is clear, as is the potential for industrial leadership in Europe in a wide range of different areas. An emerging policy agenda for advancing this would include an integrated package of measures primarily cross-sectoral in nature which would seek to: • Enable investment for innovation in zero emissions process technologies at both the early stages of deployment and at the larger scale. • Establish partnerships to develop world-leading industrial alliances of companies, investors and other stakeholders - such as the batteries alliance. • Lead and mainstream market development through public procurement, wide-ranging revision of existing or new standards for products, processes and services, and additional fiscal incentives. • Develop and design energy markets, integrated with industrial priorities and clusters. • Establish Infrastructure for minimum capacity carbon capture and storage linking industrial clusters with distribution and off-shore storage. • Implement interim measures to ensure fair trade with competitors through border adjustments 3. Decentralise integrated energy, mobility and building innovations and solutions As a complement to the ongoing and further development of the clean energy and mobility packages, there is clearly still a need for further initiatives in the area of energy, mobility and buildings, areas which have dominated the EU’s policy approach to achieving a climate neutral economy thus far. Institutional innovations that could help in the next period include a European Parliament Standing Committee on the European Energy Transition and an Energy Transition Support Service to support Member States national plans, both of which could help to ensure rapid and effective implementation of the new legislation and regulations. Flagship initiatives with clear and understandable goals could be launched by the Commission to that end too – deeply renovate 1 million buildings by 2025, for example. And a further push to accelerate experimentation and take up of new technologies and services which have public support would provide a ‘bottomup’ economic strategy in which companies and entrepreneurs could play a key role, along with researchers, public administration and civil society actors in their widest sense. An important idea developed by the High-Level Panel of the European Decarbonisation Pathways Initiative has proposed that a significant budget from Horizon Europe could be allocated to the development of a number of Transition Super-Labs for this purpose. These are conceived as real-life laboratories where systemic innovation for fully climate neutral economies can be undertaken, 33 notably in locations where such transitions could be particularly difficult. These might include miningindustrial complexes, conventional agricultural regions or metropolitan areas, with funding coming from a range of different sources in addition to those from Horizon Europe. This would also become an important element of a fully developed regional strategy to ensure a ‘just transition’, given the different local impacts it will have, and need for public support to be maintained throughout an extended period of significant structural change. 4. Reform finance and economics for a just transition to climate neutrality To enable the investment necessary for the transformation to a climate neutral and circular economy, as well as to address the social concerns over the way that the benefits of the current model are shared, the case for the EU to address its overall economic and financial approach is stronger than ever, and is an essential element for it to be ‘just’ at its heart. Fully applied, the concept of the circular economy already drives towards such a new concept of consumption and production, incentivising new business models without the inherent waste, inefficiency and damage of our linear one. There will be a continued need to refine indicators of economic development which improve and complement GDP and provide better guides for policy-makers, investors and citizens with regards to their prosperity. And those metrics that already exist should be used to a greater extent and given more prominence – for example the ‘material footprint’ used by Eurostat. This should all become a key element of the semester process, too. Whilst the move to a climate neutral economy is expected to be economically beneficial for Europe, it will require a mobilisation of large amounts of capital. Both public and private finance will be needed to shift away from exposure to higher risk high carbon investments and into those lower risk ones which are consistent with a climate neutral economy. The EU is leading the way in the sustainable finance agenda at present, and when the current proposals seeking clearer definitions and incentives are completed, there is a strong case not just to apply them in capital markets, but to implement the High Level Expert Group recommendations, strengthen the Accounting and Non-Financial Reporting Directives, and to extend them to trade agreements and the application of state aid policy, to enable new public/private financing models. Public finance must also be further mobilised and better directed than at present. The next MFF must confirm the high proportion of climate mainstreaming. Even now, there are still subsidies and lending by the EIB and other financial institutions to high carbon, fossil fuel projects, so their portfolios should all be reviewed for consistency with immediate action towards the mid-century goal, especially where these are infrastructure investments. And perhaps now is also the time to revisit the question of a carbon tax at EU level, which would represent a step-change in the way the EU addressed the wider economic approach to the transition, symbolising the new priority to the subject, as well as linking EU action to individual citizens more directly than is currently the case. As long as the re-distribution of the revenues were fair, and helped to directly address the need for a just transition, the balance of interest in this among the Member States may also shift, especially given the need for increased structural funding for some regions. 34 The #EuropeMatters cast list Jamila Aanzi, Dutch Women's Representative to the UN, European Young Leader (EYL40) Alberto Alemanno, Professor of EU Law, HEC Paris, Founder of The Good Lobby, European Young Leader (EYL40) Joaquín Almunia, Visiting Professor at LSE and Sciences-Po Paris and VicePresident of the European Commission (2010-2014), Trustee of Friends of Europe László Andor, Head of Department of Economic Policy at Corvinus University, Budapest and European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (2010-2014), Trustee of Friends of Europe Iiris André, Former Communications Manager, Friends of Europe Alberto Anfossi, Secretary-General, Compagnia di San Paolo, Torino Guillem Anglada, Reader in Astronomy, Queen Mary, University of London, European Young Leader (EYL40) Louise Arbour, Special Representative for International Migration, United Nations Matilda Axelson, Doctoral Researcher on Industrial Innovation and Low-carbon Technologies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Institute for European Studies (IES) Lloyd Axworthy, Chair, World Refugee Council Dawood Azami, Multimedia Editor, BBC World Service, Laureate of the BBC Global Reith Award for Outstanding Contribution, European Young Leader (EYL40) Ricardo Baptista Leite, Member of the Committee on Health, National Assembly, Portugal, European Young Leader (EYL40) Luc Bas, Director, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), European Regional Office Clément Beaune, Adviser, Europe and G20, Office of the President, France, European Young Leader (EYL40) Imen Ben Mohamed, Vice-Chair of the committee on Economic and Financial Affairs, Social Affairs and Education, National Parliament, Tunisia, MENA Young Leader (EYL40) Sarah Bentz, Former Senior Programme Manager, Friends of Europe Inge Bernaerts, Head of Cabinet, EU Commissioner for Employment & Social Affairs Marianne Thyssen Noura Berrouba, Member of the Governing Body, European Youth Parliament, Diane Binder, Vice-President, Suez Environnement, Co-President and Founder of Action Emploi Réfugiés, European Young Leader (EYL40) Joachim Bitterlich, Professor at ESCP Europe and Diplomatic Adviser to Helmut Kohl (1987-1998), Trustee of Friends of Europe Arnaud Bodet, Communications Executive, Friends of Europe Julie Bolle, Head of Data Management and Support, Friends of Europe Nassim Bounya, Database Management Executive, Friends of Europe Franziska Katharina Brantner, Member of the German Bundestag, Trustee of Friends of Europe Elmar Brok, Member, European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), Trustee of Friends of Europe Kirsten Brosbøl, Member of the Parliament, National Parliament, Denmark, Minister of the Environment (2014-2015), European Young Leader (EYL40) Justin Brown, Ambassador, Mission of Australia to the EU Hanke Bruins Slot, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Interior, Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, Netherlands, European Young Leader (EYL40) Jacques Bughin, Director at the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) and Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company Mathew Burrows, Director of Foresight, Strategy, and Risks Initiative, Atlantic Council of the United States Malcolm Byrne, Head of Communications, Higher Education Authority, Ireland, European Young Leader (EYL40) Geert Cami, Co-Founder and SecretaryGeneral, Friends of Europe Edoardo Camilli, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Hozint - Horizon Intelligence, European Young Leader (EYL40) Michele Chang, Professor, European Political and Governance Studies Department, College of Europe Céline Charveriat, Executive Director, Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) Joanna Cherry, Member of the Exiting the EU Committee, House of Commons, United Kingdom Patrick Child, Deputy Director-General, European Commission, Directorate General for Research and Innovation (RTD) Radoslaw Martin Cichy, Research Group Leader, Free University of Berlin, European Young Leader (EYL40) Dan Costello, Ambassador, Mission of Canada to the EU Manuel Costescu, Head of Investments, Soros Economic Development Fund (SEDF), European Young Leader (EYL40) Iain Couzin, Director of Department, Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz Robert Cox, Senior Adviser to the European Community Humanitarian Office (1993-1998), Trustee of Friends of Europe Lucinda Creighton, Former Irish Minister for European Affairs and Member of Parliament Gabriela Cretu, Member of the Committee on European Affairs, Senate, Romania Daniel Daianu, Member of the Board, National Bank of Romania, Romanian Finance Minister (1997-1998), Trustee of Friends of Europe Xavier Damman, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, OpenCollective, European Young Leader (EYL40) Raphaël Danglade, Programme Manager for Climate and Energy, Friends of Europe Christian Danielsson, Director-General, European Commission, Directorate General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations Alexandra Dariescu, Concert pianist, producer - "The Nutcracker and I”, European Young Leader (EYL40) Count Etienne Davignon, Vice-President of the European Commission (1981- 1985), President of Friends of Europe Caroline de Gruyter, EU Correspondent, NRC Handelsblad Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, President, Dutch Advisory Council on International Affairs, NATO Secretary General (2004- 2009), Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs (2002-2003), Trustee of Friends of Europe Niall Dennehy, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, Aid:Tech Hailemariam Dessalegn, Former Prime Minister, Ethiopia Ciarán Devane, Chief Executive, British Council Office, London Carl Dolan, Director, Transparency International EU Office Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, European Investment Bank Representative to the EU institutions, and former Secretary of State for European Affairs and Economic Policy, Trustee of Friends of Europe Andrew Duff, President, The Spinelli Group Lukasz Dziekonski, Chief Executive Officer, Montis Capital, European Young Leader (EYL40) Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bak, Member of the National Board, RAZEM, European Young Leader (EYL40) Othman El Ferdaous, Secretary of State, Investment, Morocco, MENA Young Leader (EYL40) Antonia Erlandsson, Programme Manager, Friends of Europe Lowri Evans, Director-General, European Commission, Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs Tanja Fajon, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Trustee of Friends of Europe Marlene Farrugia, Chair, House of Representatives, Malta, Committee on Environment and Development Planning Aaron Farrugia, Junior EU Affairs Minister, Ministry of European Affairs and Equality, European Young Leader (EYL40) Elena Fenili, Head of Credit and Integrated risks initiatives, UniCredit, European Young Leader (EYL40) John Fernald, Professor of Economics and Political Science, INSEAD, Europe Campus Mary Fitzgerald, Researcher and Consultant in Euro-Mediterranean Affairs specialising in Libya, European Young Leader (EYL40) Cristina Fonseca, Venture Partner, Indico Capital Partners, European Young Leader (EYL40) Clémentine Forissier, Editor-in-Chief, Contexte, European Young Leader (EYL40) Myriam François, Journalist, Mirror Door Productions, European Young Leader (EYL40) Jeffrey Franks, Senior Resident Representative to the EU, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Monica Frassoni, Co-President of the European Green Party and Member of the European Parliament (1999-2009), Trustee of Friends of Europe Markus Freiburg, Founder and Managing Director, Financing Agency for Social Entrepreneurship (FASE), European Young Leader (EYL40) Nathalie Furrer, Director of Programmes and Operations, Friends of Europe Laetitia Garcia Moreno, Senior Events Manager, Friends of Europe Anthony Gardner, US Ambassador to the EU (2014-2017) Neena Gill, Vice-Chair, European Parliament Delegation for Relations with India Oliver Gnad, Founder and Executive Chief Officer, Bureau fuer Zeitgeschehen (BfZ) Ana Gomes, Member of the European Parliament, Trustee of Friends of Europe Silvio Gonzato, Director for Strategic Communication, European External Action Service (EEAS) Gie Goris, Editor-in-Chief, MO* Jan Grauls, Member of the General Assembly, Friends of Europe, Ambassador of Belgium to the UN (2008-2013) Élisabeth Guigou, President of the Anna Lindh Foundation, Trustee of Friends of Europe 36 Jakob Haesler, Founder of Project Alloy, European Young Leader (EYL40) Michael Hager, Head of Cabinet, Cabinet of European Commission, VicePresident Günther Oettinger, Budget and Human Resources Gábor Harangozó, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Agriculture, National Parliament, Hungary Pavla Holcová, Founder, Czech Center for Investigative Journalism, European Young Leader (EYL40) Natasha Ibbotson, Senior Manager, Membership and Partnerships, Friends of Europe Anne-Marie Imafidon, Chief Executive Officer, Stemettes, European Young Leader (EYL40) Darja Isaksson, Member of the Board, Swedish Industrial Design Foundation Shada Islam, Director of Europe and Geopolitics, Friends of Europe Klen Jäärats, Director for EU Affairs, Office of the Prime Minister, Estonia, European Young Leader (EYL40) Patrick Janssens, Member of the Board, Friends of Europe Sarah Jones, Journalist and Social Technologies Strategist, Sarah Jones Reports LLC, North America, Young Leader (EYL40) Zanda Kalnina-Lukaševica, Parliamentary State Secretary for EU Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Latvia, European Young Leader (EYL40) Dharmendra Kanani, Director of Insights, Friends of Europe Assita Kanko, Founder, Polin, European Young Leader (EYL40) Sony Kapoor, Managing Director of the think tank Re-Define Stefánia Kapronczay, Executive Director, Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, European Young Leader (EYL40) Jesse Klaver, Leader, GroenLinks, European Young Leader (EYL40) Alexander Kmentt, Permanent Representative to the PSC, Permanent Representation of Austria to the EU Nicole Koenig, Deputy Director, Notre Europe - Jacques Delors Institute Marthe Krijger, Programme Manager, Friends of Europe Kristel Kruustuk, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Testilo, European Young Leader (EYL40) Marco Lambertini, Director-General, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International Pascal Lamy, Honorary President of Notre Europe - Jacques Delors Institute, and Director General of the World Trade Organization (2005-2013), Trustee of Friends of Europe Beatrice Leanza, Creative Director and Co-Founder, B/Side Design | The Global School, European Young Leader (EYL40) Sándor Léderer, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, K-Monitor, European Young Leader (EYL40) Ana Lehmann, Secretary of State of Industry, Ministry of Economy, Portugal Jean-Luc Lemercier, Corporate Vice-President, EMEA, Canada and Latin America, Edwards Lifesciences European Headquarters Kati Levoranta, Chief Executive Officer, Rovio Entertainment Lucien Leyh, Multimedia and Communications Executive, Friends of Europe Thomas Leysen, Chairman of the KBC Groupand of Umicore; Chairman of the King Baudouin Foundation and of the Rubenianum Fund, Member of the General Assembly, Friends of Europe Joe Litobarski, Editor, Debating Europe André Loesekrug-Pietri, Founder and Managing Partner, ACAPITAL, Member of Friends of Europe’s Strategy and Finance Committee, European Young Leader (EYL40) Elza Lőw, Multimedia Manager, Friends of Europe Matti Maasikas, Deputy Minister for EU Affairs and Brexit Coordinator, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Estonia Marijke Mars, Board Member, Mars Atsushi Matsushita, Associate Fellow, Friends of Europe Philippe Maze-Sencier, Managing Director, McLarty Associates Frédéric Mazzella, Founder and President, BlaBlaCar, European Young Leader (EYL40) Aaron McLoughlin, Executive Director of Public Affairs, European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) David McNair, Executive Director for Global Policy, The ONE Campaign João Wengorovius Meneses, General Manager, HUB 2050, Portuguese Secretary of State of Youth and Sport (2015-2016), European Young Leader (EYL40) Marco Mensik, Director General, European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) Giles Merritt, Founder and Chairman, Friends of Europe, Author of ‘Slippery Slope: Europe's Troubled Future’ Ayman Mhanna, Executive Director, Samir Kassir Foundation, MENA Young Leader (EYL40) Meghan Milloy, Co-Founder, Republican Women for Progress, NA Young Leader (EYL40) Iztok Mirosic, Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Slovenia Jan Mischke, Senior Fellow and European Research Leader, McKinsey Global Institute Daniel Mondekar, Senior Partner for European Public and Regulatory Affairs, EuroNavigator Mario Monti, Prime Minister of Italy (2011-2013) and former European Commissionner, Trustee of Friends of Europe Jonathan Murray, Managing Director, Friends of Europe Katarzyna Nawrot, Assistant Professor, Poznan University of Economics Department of International Economics, European Young Leader (EYL40) Lindsey Nefesh-Clarke, Founder and Managing Director, Women's Worldwide Web (W4), European Young Leader (EYL40) Ceta Noland, Strategic Policy Advisor EU, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands Jan Noterdaeme, Senior Adviser on Strategy and EU and Stakeholder Relations, CSR Europe Adam Nyman, Director, Debating Europe Bastian Obermayer, Pulitzer Prizewinning investigative journalist, Süddeutsche Zeitung, European Young Leader (EYL40) Luminița Teodora Odobescu, Ambassador, Permanent Representation of Romania to the EU 37 Claudia Olsson, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Exponential AB, European Young Leader (EYL40) Monique Pariat, Director-General, European Commission, Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO) Ricken Patel, President and Executive Director, Avaaz Angela Pauly, Head of Communications, Friends of Europe Mark Pearson, Deputy Director, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Muriel Pénicaud, Minister of Labour, France Alojz Peterle, Member of the European Parliament and former Prime Minister of Slovenia, Trustee of Friends of Europe Chahaiya Pilkington, Programme Executive, Friends of Europe Lapo Pistelli, Executive Vice-President International Affairs, Eni Geneviève Pons, Director, Notre Europe - Jacques Delors Institute, EU Office Eduardo Portal Martin, Conductor, Individuals, European Young Leader (EYL40) Martin Porter, Executive Chair, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) Xavier Prats Monné, Special Advisor, Teach for All Fadi Quran, Senior Campaigner, Avaaz, MENA Young Leader (EYL40) Konstanty Radziwill, Member, Senate, Poland, Committee on Rules, Ethics and Senatorial Affairs, Former Polish Health Minister Augusta Maria Ramaccioni, Programme Executive, Friends of Europe Andrea Rappagliosi, Vice-President, Market Access and Public Affairs, EMEA, Canada and LATAM, Edwards Lifesciences European Headquarters Jaya Ratnam, Ambassador, Mission of Singapore to the EU Nasima Razmyar, Deputy Mayor of Helsinki, National Parliament, FinlandCommittee on Defence, European Young Leader (EYL40) Åsa Regnér, Deputy Executive Director, UN Women Paul Révay, European Director of the Trilateral Commission, Trustee of Friends of Europe Didier Reynders, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and European Affairs, Belgium Helen Rivett, Project Manager, Debating Europe Amanda Rohde, Programme Manager, Friends of Europe Denis Roio, Founder, Dyne.org, European Young Leader (EYL40) Isabelle Roland, Senior Finance and Administration Manager, Friends of Europe Tamsin Rose, Senior Fellow, Friends of Europe Eulalia Rubio, Senior Research Fellow, Notre Europe - Jacques Delors Institute Matthias Ruete, Hors-Classe Adviser, European Commission Mikko Salo, Founder, Faktabaari Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Member of the European Parliament and Polish Minister for European Affairs (1991- 1996, 2000-2001), Trustee of Friends of Europe Marietje Schaake, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament, Delegation for Relations with the United States, Trustee of Friends of Europe Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow and Trustee of Friends of Europe and former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges Burke Sinéad, Contributing Editor, British Vogue - Condé Nast International Clotilde Sipp, Senior Programme Manager, Friends of Europe Francesca Spidalieri, Senior Fellow for Cyber Leadership, Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, Salve Regina University, United States of America Markus Steilemann, Chief Executive Officer, Covestro Alexander Stubb, Vice-President, European Investment Bank (EIB) Vladimir Sucha, Director-General, European Commission, Joint Research Centre Ayşe Cihan Sultanoglu, Assistant Secretary-General and Regional Director for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Kamilla Sultanova, Entrepreneur, ConnectUz, European Young Leader (EYL40) Pawel Swieboda, Deputy Head of the European Political Strategy Centre, European Commission Tilman Tacke, Partner, McKinsey & Company Catherine Talvaz, Personal Assistant, Friends of Europe Silver Tammik, Director of the EU and International Cooperation Department, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, Estonia Rene Tammist, Minister for Entrepreneurship and Information Technology, Estonia Charles Tannock, Member, European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) Paul Taylor, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe and Contributing Editor, Politico David Taylor, Ambassador, Mission of New Zealand to the EU Anna Terrón Cusí, Chair of the United Nations University Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility and Spanish Secretary of State for Immigration and Emigration (2010- 2011), Trustee of Friends of Europe Marika Theros, Head of the State Programme, Institute for State Effectiveness Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer, Save the Children International Bruno Tobback, Member, Flemish Parliament, Belgian Minister of Pensions (2004-2007) Arno Tomowski, Director, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Ringaile Trakymaite, Project Manager, Friends of Europe Davor Tremac, General Manager, Southeast Europe.

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