Over the past decade, European integration has been challenged as never before, buffeted by storms that have exposed and exacerbated significant shortcomings in its economic and political construction. As a new leadership team takes office, the EU faces key strategic decisions about its future. To create fresh momentum that will allow Europe to exploit more of its potential and meet citizens’ needs and expectations, there is a need to elaborate a New Pact for Europe between Member States and between the EU and its citizens: a Pact based on three main pillars – an ‘Enabling Union’, a ‘Supportive Union’ as well as a ‘Participatory Union’ – and a new grand project, which balances the interests of different EU countries and different groups within them and restores the perception that European integration is a ‘win-win’ for everyone.
The New Pact for Europe project was initiated by the King Baudouin Foundation (Belgium) and the Bertelsmann Stiftung (Germany) and is supported by a large transnational consortium of foundations, think tanks and civil society organisations.
The initiative aims to promote a Europe-wide debate on the perspectives for European integration and this second project report, which will be discussed with policy-makers and stakeholders in a majority of Member States, is designed to feed into the ongoing discussions about the European Union’s future.