Friends of Europe | Future of Europe

In focus

40 under 40: European Young Leaders

Friends of Europe and EuropaNova launch an ambitious young leadership programme, the first seminar of which gave Young Leaders the opportunity to share their opinions on key European issues during both interactive and “out of the box” sessions, as well as during informal chats with high-level decisionmakers and experts. The next seminar of the programme will take place in Brussels on 7-9 June 2012. Video, photos and report

Europe's World

	For a strategic thinker, it’s a short-sighted suggestion by Bruno Kaufmann Julian Priestley has made a brave attempt at mapping the options for increasing public interest in the EU’s democratic underpinnings. His article offers insights into the state of play within the European Parliament, the mainstream media and academe.
	Fostering Europe’s infant democracies by Radoslaw Sikorski A new tool to foster infant democracies in Europe’s neighbouring countries is proposed by Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. As well as supporting pluralism, media freedom and “deep democracy” it would also enable the EU to act more quickly and flexibly.

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Trustees speak out

Rigor más crecimiento
Enrique Barón Crespo compares the current Eurozone crisis to a un-finished house. Do we keep living together, reinforcing the roof and walls of the house to keep out the storm? Or do we stay outside and put up with the weather?

Guy Verhofstadt: How to break the European deadlock
The European Union and particularly the Member States of the euro area, indeed, are in great trouble. For about two years now, a debt crisis is challenging Europe and the future of the European Union.

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Op-eds

Deepening the EU or time for a re-boot?
by Willy De Backer Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has revitalised the debate about deepening the EU. In the past eighteen months, a new political narrative has been written which led to the creation of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), opened a big debate on the need for “Eurobonds”, and stimulated ideas for a real fiscal union to prevent the current fragmented and inefficient approaches to resolving the Eurocrisis.

A plea for social democracy
Social democracy was arguably Europe’s greatest 20th century contribution to political governance. But who currently governs in the West? In the US and the UK, we have seen Wall Street and the City increasingly dominate political agendas, both nationally and wider afield, and thereby determine societal and economic choices and priorities.

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About The Future of Europe

In the late 1990s, Friends of Europe built its reputation by identifying EU institutional reform a critical issue that would determine the course of European integration. Landmark events such as the 28-nation “Hearing from Europe” TV debate of 2003 highlighted the reform process and our activities track closely the political fortunes of the Constitutional and Lisbon treaties. An important dimension of this policy area is the EU budget, which will be the subject of a number of Friends of Europe debates over 2011.