The 2024-2029 European cycle : what priorities?
The European elections on 6-9 June 2024 marked the opening of a new political cycle for the European Union (EU), which is called upon to renew its leadership and adopt a new agenda in a particularly changing and adverse international context.
The “Strategic Agenda” adopted by the EU’s Heads of State and Government already reveals the broad outlines of the work programme likely to be pursued by the European Commission and its Presidency up to 2029 – provided that a majority of MEPs support it, and then adopt the measures needed to implement it, in consultation with the Council of Ministers. Safety and competitiveness thus emerge as the two main priorities of the European “condominium”, which is also called upon to renovate its foundations (1).
1. Guaranteeing the continent’s security
For a long time confined to the economic, commercial and then monetary spheres, the construction of Europe began its security transformation with the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, before making it more tangible in the mid-2010s in the face of the emergence of multiple threats (from Russia to Islamist terrorism). The Russian invasion of Ukraine amplified this change, leading Europeans to jointly finance the delivery of lethal weapons to Kiev, but also to expand the toolbox available to them to defend themselves (in terms of ammunition and intervention forces, for example).
The persistence of the Russian threat, in Ukraine and beyond, should help to put security challenges at thetop of the European agenda for 2030, as should the persistence of Islamist terrorism, instability in our immediate neighbourhood, from Africa to the Middle East, and growing tensions in the Indo-Pacific region.
The return of war to our continent should thus confirm the increase in defence spending in Europe, the impact of which will be all the greater if EU countries manage to develop more joint projects in terms of military technologies and equipment (for example, in the areas of drones, tanks and combat aircraft).
The Europeans will also be encouraged to strengthen the “European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance”, depending on the outcome of the American elections in November 2024 and in the light of Washington’s irrepressible pivot towards China and Asia. In any case, they will have to strengthen their capacity to take charge of their “collective security” in all its components, from armaments to police cooperation, intelligence sharing, the fight against cyber attacks and foreign interference, and the control and rejection of presumed hostile investments.
This accentuation of the European approach to geopolitical and security challenges is likely to colour the whole of the EU’s agenda over the next few years and reinforce the promotion of a form of “European sovereignty”, following on from the guidelines adopted at Versailles in the spring of 2022.
2. Strengthening the competitiveness of Europeans
The ecological transition has been the priority of the Von der Leyen Commission since 2019, and the fight against climate change or the protection of biodiversity should continue to mobilise the EU during the 2024-29 policy cycle, including to implement the many decisions already taken. Tougher international competition should, however, lead Europeans to place greater emphasis on their economic competitiveness, as well as on reducing their vulnerabilities in terms of access to critical raw materials and clean technologies.
Once again, this should involve extending the changes initiated during the 2019-2024 cycle: on the one hand, by implementing an “open, sustainable and assertive trade policy“, as foreshadowed, for example, by the anti-dumping measures recently imposed on Chinese producers of electric vehicles; on the other hand, by developing more industrial alliances and “Major Projects of Common European Interest”/”PIIEC” jointly mobilising companies and Member States in strategic sectors (semiconductors, quantum, digital, transport, energy, etc.), including in response to the global economic crisis. ), including in response to the activism of the US authorities in this area.
The geopolitical and ecological dynamics at work could combine their effects in favour of more local, and therefore continental, production and consumption, via the effective implementation of the “Industrial Plan for the competitiveness of carbon-neutral European industry“. However, EU decision-makers will have to strive to strike a new balance between trade openness that generates surpluses and appreciable gains in purchasing power, and more geopolitical objectives in terms of sovereignty and security.
These initial defensive adjustments are intended to be supplemented by more offensive initiatives, focusing in particular on R&D and education and training in order to prevent Europe from falling behind in terms of productivity and innovation, in line with the recommendations of the report drawn up by Mario Draghi. It will also mean providing better support for businesses of all sizes, by favouring less burdensome national and European standards that are more conducive to their growth, and by giving them access to low-carbon, cheap energy and the human resources they need.
In this respect, the management of migratory flows into the EU should also be a key issue for the 2024-2029 cycle, in a demographic context that is still anaemic: the national and Community authorities will have to arbitrate between recourse to a non-European workforce that is necessary for the proper functioning of our economic and social systems and the political and identity-related reticence generated by non-European immigration in many of the continent’s countries.
3. Renewing European “co-ownership
The new international geopolitical and economic context finally calls for a renewal of the EU’s market, financial, geographical and institutional foundations.
Promoted by the Enrico Letta Report, deepening the “single market” appears to be a key resource for making the most of the EU’s growth potential, while strengthening its competitiveness in relation to its major competitors. In particular, this will involve remedying the lack of integration in the financial, energy and electronic communications sectors – three types of network whose availability and performance are decisive for all European businesses.
The financial services sector will be the focus of particular attention, given the need for Europeans to invest massively if they wish to strengthen their security and make a success of their ecological and digital transitions, while strengthening their social and territorial cohesion. The advent of a genuine “capital markets union” must contribute to this increase in private and public investment, in the same way as the activism of the European Investment Bank, the flexible management of European rules on deficits, but also the development of Community rules on State aid – the current heterogeneity of which distorts competition between companies and Member States. Finally, the need for greater joint investment will give rise to intense discussions on the size and structure of the EU budget, which could be endowed with new “own resources” (of an ecological nature, for example), as well as on the launch of new joint loans, inspired by the one issued after the pandemic crisis.
The acceleration in the processing of applications for EU membership, whether from Eastern Europe or the Balkans, will also shape the new agenda of its decision-makers, as they seek to stabilise these countries by bringing them into our geopolitical fold. On the one hand, these countries will have to be supported in their long process of adopting European norms and standards, which will not necessarily come to fruition in the short term; on the other hand, the content and budgetary scope of existing common policies (particularly agricultural and cohesion policies) will have to be adjusted, so that the EU can absorb these future accessions while safeguarding the interests of its citizens.
Lastly, the prospect of further EU enlargements will fuel the debate on improving the efficiency of its institutional system, whose reform must also respond to the aspirations for greater citizen participation, as expressed at the “Conference on the Future of Europe”. In particular, it will be necessary to reach agreement on reducing the need for unanimous votes between Member States, strengthening the control and decision-making powers of the European Parliament and increasing the transparency of Community decision-making processes. At the same time, the EU must continue to ensure respect for democracy and the rule of law in all its member countries, not only because this is in line with its values but also because it is the foundation of the legal certainty to which its citizens and economic players aspire.
The strategic orientations outlined above will only become effective if a political agreement can be reached at the end of the negotiations undertaken between the Member States and the European Parliament, and which will crystallise on the occasion of the vote of investiture of the President of the Commission in mid-July 2024, then of the members of the College of Commissioners in the autumn. They will reflect a kind of break with continuity, which seems to be in phase with the changing international context, with the adjustments undertaken in recent years, but also with the political verdict delivered by the European elections of 6-9 June 2024.
The traditional conservatives of the “European People’s Party” remain the leading electoral force in the European Parliament, with just over a quarter of the seats, the Social Democrats the second, with just under 20%, while the Liberal-Centrists are down from 14% to 11% – or at least 56% of the seats between them. All in all, the European Parliament should continue to operate on the basis of variable-geometry majorities largely shaped by the EPP, S&D and Renew, with occasional support from Eurosceptic conservatives (on the increase, particularly in the case of Georgia Meloni’s supporters) and/or the Greens. This development will directly echo that already observed in the Council of the EU, where EPP members now head a dozen national governments, whereas a few years ago they headed as many as the Social Democrats and the centrist Liberals – which will facilitate cooperation between the European Parliament and the Member States, despite the differences between the latter.
These programmatic forecasts are naturally subject to the adjustments that will inevitably occur throughout the inter-institutional negotiations in the2nd half of 2024, and then in the face of international events that are by their nature more unpredictable. The same applies to national and local authorities and to all the economic, social and civic players concerned, if they wish to seize the opportunities and guard against the risks generated by our new political and geopolitical environment and promote their interests as effectively as possible over the next five years, which promise to be decisive for Europeans.
(1) This blog post is based on an article on European priorities 2024-2029 published by the Review “Risques”.