Possible Avenues for Further Political Integration in Europe
This study, written by Prof. Federico Fabbrini, Charlemagne Prize Fellow 2019/2020, commissioned by the European Parliament's Policy Department for Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the AFCO Committee, analyses possible avenues for further political integration in the EU after Brexit. The study maps the multiple crises that the EU has weathered in the past decade and explains how these crises, including the recent Covid-19 pandemic, reveal several substantive and institutional weaknesses in the current EU system of governance. The study considers the potentials of the nascent Conference on the Future of Europe to renew the EU and examines the obstacles and opportunities for EU treaty reforms, considering the option of channelling the Conference's outcome into a new political Compact, subject to new, less-than-unanimous ratification rules.