On 22 November 2023 – that is, more than a year after the end of the Conference on the Future of Europe, which had adopted many reform proposals, most of which had been suggested by citizens selected at random – the European Parliament, after a hard-fought vote and significant water-downed compromises, adopted a non-legislative resolution calling on the European Council to initiate the procedure under Article 48 TEU to amend the antiquated Treaty of Lisbon, signed by the 25 Member States in 2007 and which came into force two years later after having survived the ordeal of two referendums in Ireland.
The text of 22 November 2023, negotiated between five rapporteurs in the absence of any public debate or dialogue outside the parliamentary chambers, failed to secure a majority consensus amongst MEPs, as it was approved by 290 MEPs out of 719 members, only narrowly overcoming the conservative resistance of the European People’s Party, the vast majority of whom had chosen to side with the defenders of the status quo or even with a regression towards sovereigntist positions.
Even the most ardent supporters of that text admit that it was not a historic vote destined to change the course of the European Union, as was the case with the 1984 Spinelli draft Treaty, which, although formally shelved by governments, inspired the subsequent internal reforms introduced by the Single European Act right up to the Treaty of Lisbon, a long way after an objective and comparative reading of that draft Treaty and subsequent treaties.
The governments within the European Council and the European Commission have so far ignored the text of 22 November 2023, just as the proposals adopted by the Conference on the Future of Europe – on the digital platform and in the national panels organised during the Conference, as well as in the transnational panels organised by the European Commission after the Conference to provide limited support for its consultations in its role as legislative initiator – have been largely ignored.
Despite the laudable declarations of principle from the pro-European movements – though in the absence of genuine popular mobilisation – which for almost three years has been urging the European Council in vain to take into consideration the lengthy text of the non-legislative resolution of 22 November 2023, the governments and the Commission are convinced that the future accession of new Member States must be accompanied by inevitable reforms of policies but not by a broader reform of what is termed European governance (politics), which would appear to any scholar to be indispensable for ensuring that a Union open to thirty-five members functions effectively and in accordance with democratic principles within an unforeseeable timeframe.
Having effectively forgotten the non-legislative resolution of 22 November 2023, the new European Parliament – or rather its Committee on Constitutional Affairs – has decided to devote itself to a more pragmatic exercise in à la carte institutional reviews, tackling piece by piece the substantive issues raised by pressing concerns (enlargement, defence, competitiveness, artificial intelligence) and studying their institutional consequences for future reference with a method and commitment worthy of greater consideration – that is, when it is deemed appropriate to open the Pandora’s box of European governance reform.
Looking at the state of the Union – the real one, not the one consisting merely of words not backed up by coherent action, as presented to us by Ursula von der Leyen on 16 September, accompanied by a ‘letter of non-intent’ – it would be natural to suggest that these à la carte pieces should be supplemented by others concerning, for example, the institutional consequences of the completion of economic and monetary union or the financial system alongside fiscal policy, or, finally, an in-depth study of the European Union’s international relations beyond and above the defence provisions that the Treaty of Lisbon has unfortunately split into two parts (TEU and TFEU).
We have long been convinced that the state of the Union would require us to abandon ineffective institutional shortcuts based on the belief that one can make an omelette (the United States of Europe) without breaking the eggs (national sovereignties), as evidenced by the inconclusive initiatives to overcome the veto power or by the so-called ‘enhanced cooperation’ or ‘permanent structured cooperation’ introduced in Amsterdam in 1999, which have failed to produce any significant progress in European history.
Our suggestion to organisations representing civil society and to European political forces – including their foundations – is to acknowledge that, during this parliamentary term, the conditions do not exist to amend the Treaties using the Convention method provided for in Article 48 of the TEU, and that it is instead necessary to lay the groundwork for a constitutional process that combines the dimension of representative democracy (cooperation between the European Parliament and national legislative assemblies) and that of participatory democracy (dialogue with civil society, including through conferences with deliberative functions and a digital platform).
This process must be prepared over the coming months in the run-up to the congresses of the European political parties, which will be called upon to adopt their election manifestos and select their candidates for the presidency of the European Commission or the presidency of the Union, whilst pressing the Council to respond to proposals for a uniform electoral procedure and the introduction of transnational lists.
With the start of the new parliamentary term in 2029, the launch of a genuine constituent process must avoid the tortuous route of a revision of the treaties – which would inevitably require an intergovernmental conference – and instead involve the consolidation of all parliamentary proposals into a single treaty text, as was the case with the Spinelli draft Treaty in 1984 or with the brief Treaty adopted in 2003 by the Convention on the Future of Europe, to be submitted for direct assessment by national legislative assemblies – including those in candidate countries – and finally to a confirmatory pan-European referendum, with a procedure for entry into force similar to that proposed in Article 82 of the Spinelli draft.
Since the fundamental principle of our modern constitutional democracies is that sovereignty belongs to the people, who delegate it in the forms provided for by their constitutions, and since in the majority of Member States popular consultations form part of constitutional or political practice, we believe that a pan-European referendum should be held in advance, in conjunction with the 2029 European elections, to recognise the constituent role of the new European Parliament.
It will be democratic debates and popular decisions that determine the will to move from the ‘hermaphrodite’ European Union to the United States of Europe.
Brussels, 22 September 2026
Pier Virgilio Dastoli