What will the future EU be like - united and successful, or divided and
inefficient? Has the Convention got the answers - and will it get to a consenus
as it reaches the endgame?
How can the enlarged Europe, with its population of almost half a billion
and its large economy, present a united face to the world and promote peace,
democracy and prosperity internationally as well as at home? These and other
key questions on the future role and structure of the EU are at the top of the
European political agenda, both in the aftermath of the Iraq war and EU splits,
and as the Convention on the Future of Europe enters its endgame in drawing
up an EU constitution.
At the convention, debates are getting more intense among the 105 representatives
from 28 countries at the convention. How can the EU be made more democratic
and more efficient at the same time? How can it have a political voice on the
world stage - not least given the cacophony of European voices in the Iraq crisis?
Key questions in our Current Debates
Convention Endgame: What will the future EU be like - united and
successful, or divided and inefficient? Has the Convention got the answers
- and will it get to a consensus as it reaches the endgame?
Core Europe and foreign policy: Is an avantgarde - or inner core
- the way forward for the enlarged EU to ensure continuing momentum and political
development, not least in foreign and defence policy? Or is the idea of a
core something that would undermine the enlarged EU causing splits and divisions?
Is the core anyway workable as an idea? The Convention has discussed but not
agreed on enhanced cooperation in defence - but should it be looking in more
depth at the issue of core Europe? And what hopes for an EU common foreign
policy - is it unrealistic for decades still, or can a leap forward be made?
