New Pact for Europe – Exploiting the Window of Opportunity

Given the state of today’s Union, there is an urgent need to foster debate at all levels, exchanging views across the EU to provide insights into other countries’ interests and viewpoints. This could help member states and the Union as a whole to weather the crises and become proactive once more, going well beyond the lowest common denominator. In this sense, the crises are also a window of opportunity for Europe to find new common ground. 

Building on the analysis and proposals elaborated in previous phases, in 2016-2017 the New Pact for Europe project will explore how the EU can better serve the interests of its member states and citizens, through a series of national and transnational debates on key policy challenges (the migration/refugee crisis, internal and external security, as well as economic and social challenges). This was done through discussions in National Reflection.

The aim of this new phase of the NPE project was to elaborate – with the help of a European Reflection Group – the details of a wider ‘package deal’ to equip the EU with the tools it needs to meet the internal and external challenges it faces, while also taking into account the diverse interests of its member states and citizens. This package deal will contain solutions generated by connecting the discussions on the key policy challenges and propose changes in the way the EU and its policies are defined to avoid similar fundamental crises in future.