At its Summit in December 2012 the European Council asked the European institutions and the member States to discuss how the European Union, including the Eurozone, should be deepened in order to overcome the economic and financial crisis which reached the Union and to present their proposals on that subject. Therefore at the 2013 Jean Monnet Conference the President of the European Commission José Barroso asked Professors Dusan Sidjanski, from the Geneva University, and Fausto de Quadros, from the Lisbon University, to collect the opinions of the Jean Monnet Professors on the main issue of the 2013 Jean Monnet Conference, that is, "How we might recover from the economic and social crisis through European integration deepening".
Therefore some weeks later the both Professors sent to the Jean Monnet Professors an inquiry on the subject. In the inquiry they set out the following two questions:
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What is the best institutional framework for the Eurozone, in order for it to function in the most efficient, transparent and democratic manner?
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Blueprint for a Political (federal) Union beginning with the Eurozone.
The inquiry collected responses from Jean Monnet Professors all around the world (from both EU member states and non EU states, including from America, Africa and Asia), that expressed quite different conceptions on European integration and its future, but shared the common idea that European integration must be pursued and deepened. The great difference in the responses reveals however that these issues deserve urgent enlightening and debate at the level of the EU space since, as it is expressed in some of those responses, both EU and member states must learn from the lessons of the crisis. The content of the responses was presented in a summary way by the Professor Fausto de Quadros in the 2014 Jean Monnet Conference held in Brussels (see http://ec.europa.eu/education/events/2014/20140110-jean-monnet-conference_en.htm).
Professors Sidjanski and Quadros applied for a Jean Monnet Project in order to discuss the proposals included in the responses and to publish them. For this purpose the Project planned to organize two Colloquia, one in Geneva on May 2016, and other in Lisbon, on March 2017. That’s the reason of this Colloquium. As above mentioned all the responses and respective updates will be published and disseminated in order to promote a wide debate on the future of European integration.
This Jean Monnet Project is engaged in analysing, from a scientific and academic perspective, the strengths and weaknesses of the European integration process and in contributing to new perspectives on how to reinforce the political, economic and social dimension of the European Union. In this domain, public debate is often based on poor and distorted information, misconceptions and ideological bias. The context of crisis affected all European Union member-states but, in particular, Eurozone members and countries, such as Portugal, that were also confronted with sovereignty debt crisis. Public opinion in these countries recognize European Union as a “safe harbour” in difficult situations, claim for its aid but, simultaneously, experience negative reactions as national constrains are seen as European impositions. This deficient balance between the advantages and the commitments of the European project results, frequently, from a lack of knowledge that has to be addressed with an actual dissemination of clear and objective information.
The recent presentation by the European Commission of a White Paper on the Future of Europe is an additional reason showing how opportune is the organization of the Colloquium.
Through this Colloquium the members of this Jean Monnet Project as well as the participants also wish to associate themselves to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the signature of the Treaties of Rome.