What’s in an experiment? : opportunities and risks for the Conference on the Future of Europe

Abstract

This brief gathers together proposals put forward by participants in the EUI-STG transnational democracy forum with diverse areas of expertise (in academia, think tanks, policy, NGOs, journalism); and it therefore serves as a document of collective suggestions and agenda-setting for the academic year 2021-22. The forum, which was set up in the autumn of 2020 as a space for discussion on the aims, methods and long-term implications of the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), does not speak with a single voice. Nevertheless, as ‘critical friends’ of CoFoE, we agree that – if accompanied by efforts to build bridges among a broad array of pan-European participatory initiatives – the Conference could provide an opportunity for meaningful democratisation. The forum members are also aware that this EU-led initiative carries significant risks of undermining further democratisation efforts if it is badly implemented, poorly followed-up or cynically instrumentalised. We conceptualise CoFoE as a transnational experiment that can provide an important learning experience for democratic reform in the EU, albeit an experiment that has realworld effects and so must be conducted responsibly