Andrew DUFF, President of the Spinelli Group, Senior Fellow of the European Policy Centre (EPC) and former MEP was the guest speaker of the 41st CIFE Lunchtime Debate on 6 December in Brussels. 

After having reminded the major steps forward but also failures of the European integration process following World War II, Andrew Duff regretted that “a government is not there, helas!” and that each institution has its own agenda. To improve the governance of the EU, the Spinelli Group wants to be a spur in the debate on the future of Europe, in the European Parliament, in the Committee of the Regions where a group has just been launched, and in the civil society; it also wants to further cooperate with the national parliaments. Andrew Duff believes that pan-european lists in the European Parliament election would help creating a European public space and give a concrete role to the European political parties. He regrets the division of the groups in the EP and the absence of the European Commission in this debate. Despite the populist and Eurosceptic success in some central European countries and in some founding states (The Netherlands for instance), the President of the Spinelli Group thinks that progress is possible towards a common asylum policy, towards a more European Security and Defense policy (with the countries that will and can), towards a strengthened institutional legitimacy (especially a fully empowered and legitimate European Commission).

Andrew Duff concluded with this statement: “The EU now needs to demonstrate that it can further integrate without the UK”.