It’s time for a European Constituent Moment

National leaders must agree to open a new European convention to reform the EU treaties and deliver on the recommendations made by the Conference on the Future of Europe, write over 150 leading European politicians, academics and civil society leaders in an open letter.

This open letter has been signed by Giuliano Amato, former Italian Prime Minister; José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, former Spanish Prime Minister, and over 150 more. It can be found at www.cesue.eu.

The Conference on the Future of Europe was the first experiment in EU participatory democracy. It was a fruitful process, providing EU institutions and member states with valuable input from EU citizens.

The European Commission is delivering on its commitment to propose legislation to implement the Conference proposals within the existing competences and powers of the EU. The European Parliament has drafted and approved a comprehensive proposal to reform the EU Treaties to implement the Conference proposals requiring Treaty changes, also on the basis of a technical assessment provided by the legal service of the Council, i.e. the member states governments.

Now it is up to the Council of the EU to transmit the Parliament proposal to the European Council, composed of the heads of state and government of the member states. They shall decide if to convene a Convention to reform the EU Treaties, on the basis of the European Parliament proposal, stemming from the citizens’ recommendations in the Conference on the Future of Europe. The Convention includes the representatives of the national governments and parliaments, of the European Commission and Parliament, and it shall involve citizens and civil society. 

The Lisbon Treaty was signed in 2007, to include part of the contents of the Constitutional Treaty of 2004. We live in an EU designed 20 years ago: before the financial crisis, Brexit, the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and at the beginning of China’s rise and of the erosion of the world international order. 

We, European citizens, welcome that a new enlargement is in the making. But we are aware that its success depends on deepening EU integration, streamlining its decision-making and overcoming unanimity. 

We thank the European Parliament for taking the first step in the long process of reforming the EU. We urge the Heads of state and government in the European Council not to kill this democratic process at its birth and to convene a Convention to reform the Treaties. Any other choice would be perceived as a dismissal of the European citizens’ proposals, as well as of the European Parliament, the only directed elected EU institution, and thus of European democracy as such.

We call upon the EU national parliaments to join the European Parliament’s request for a convention and to commit their governments to convene one, so that national parliaments can also participate in the reform of the EU.

The European citizens’ welfare and security heavily depend on the EU. It is time to reform the EU to make it more democratic and able to decide and act as a Union, to deal with the many challenges that member states cannot face alone, also on the international scene.