Legal and constitutional reflections on the Conference on the Future of Europe

The Conference on the Future of Europe is an innovative deliberative process that European Union (EU) institutions established to reflect on the future of the EU through bottom-up engagement with the citizens. The Conference took off, with delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on 9 May 2021, and came to a close a year later on 9 May 2022, when the war in Ukraine was already raging. The Conference ended with a final report that laid out 49 proposals and 326 detailed recommendations for reforming EU policies and institutions. The Conference’s final outcome clearly identified the existing weaknesses of the EU and unequivocally mapped a path to address them, including by recommending treaty changes in a number of key areas related to the governance and the resilience of the EU. The follow-up to the Conference, however, has so far been underwhelming; while a number of institutions and member states have openly called for amending the treaties, other actors have dragged their feet. As a result, the reform process has stalled, and whether the prospect of enlargement may revive it remains to be seen. If the EU can mobilise the political will to change the EU treaties, however, the recommendations of the Conference can serve as a valuable blueprint for needed constitutional adjustments.