Driving democratic change? The EP’s reform agenda in the context of the CoFoE

Though the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) was the brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron, and proposed jointly by the European Commission (EC) and the European Parliament (EP), the EP has been its main driver. Not only did the EP act as a host, but it was also the first institution to have laid down its vision on how to shape the Conference. In addition, Parliament’s leadership, the current EP President Roberta Metsola as well as her late predecessor David Sassoli, enthusiastically embraced the idea of involving the European citizenry more directly in EU politics. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) such as Guy Verhofstadt and Daniel Freund continue to stress, even today, the importance of taking the outcome of the Conference seriously as a way to deliver on citizens’ recommendations and boost their support for the EU and European integration. The EP thereby publicly repositioned itself as a leader in EU institutional reform, a role it has often played historically. However, beyond these vocal pro-democratic positions, what was the institutional agenda that drove the EP’s involvement on the CoFoE? Which concrete positions did the EP take during the Conference, and takes currently during its follow up, to steer the discussion on EU institutional reforms towards its own preferred outcomes? What are the institutional lessons learned from the EP’s participation in the CoFoE? In an attempt to answer these questions, the objective of this chapter is to analyse the EP’s vision of EU reform and how it was pursued. We will trace the evolution of the institutional agenda and interests of the EP related to the Conference, while taking into account the changing institutional and political context and preferences of other institutional actors and European citizens.