EU MONITOR: Conference on the Future of Europe has started, questions remain

After a year of delay, the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) has finally started on May 9^th in Strasbourg - somehow typically for the whole process, with an unexplained 20-minute delay. Due to the ongoing pandemic, discussions will take place in a hybrid form, mostly online with hope for more in-person meetings happening from autumn 2021. While it is undoubtedly good news that the initiative has finally taken off, it is worth giving a closer look into the outcomes of a nearly 2 year-long period of preparations and institutional deadlock over structure and goal of the Conference. What is the final structure and what are its potential pitfalls? What are the topics to be discussed and what we can realistically expect as an outcome? How ambitious should we be in our expectations? And besides the risks, what are the possible benefits of the exercise, if we look beyond the promise for new direction for the future of Europe?

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