24/09/26 - European Integration in the Constitutional Borderlands - The NextGenerationEU Model and the Struggle for Europe’s Future

The book explores the liminal space, the 'constitutional borderlands' the European Union now finds itself in, between its traditional role as a prodigious producer of regulatory norms and a nascent, yet incomplete, role that seeks to develop fiscal capacities to achieve its goals. The NextGenerationEU (NGEU) programme adopted in the wake of Covid is at the heart of this shift. It defined a new model of non-transparent, executive-technocratic governance that was then repurposed to address the many challenges of the Russian war on Ukraine as well as other pressing needs.

The book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the design, implementation, and evolution of the NGEU model from its inception to today. It subjects the model's hidden mechanics to a critical examination, exposing the pivotal role of EU institutional legal advisers in facilitating revolutionary reinterpretations of the Treaties that effectively bypassed the democratic process to transform the nature of European governance. It shows that the advent of the NGEU model has had profound distributive and democratic consequences, shifting power toward executive and subordinate technocratic actors while sidelining parliamentary oversight and the involvement of other stakeholders. At the same time, the NGEU model created misaligned incentives, often prioritizing national spending envelopes over the production of genuine European public goods.

The book shows how these 'emergency' measures are fast becoming the new normal. The core innovations of the NGEU model-national planning, performance-based financing, and enhanced Commission discretion-form core elements of the Commission's proposals for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (2028-2034). The book warns that without a return to open democratic politics and constitutional deliberation, the EU's navigation of the borderlands in which it currently finds itself risks eroding legitimacy and creating a fragile system unable to meet future challenges.

During this Seminar, the authors will present the key findings of the book and engage in a discussion with two discussants, Prof. Elise Muir, Professor of European Law at KULeuven, and Prof. Julio Baquero Cruz, member of the Legal Service of the European Commission and Professor of European Law at ULB. Prof. Paul Dermine, Professor of European Law at ULB, will act as moderator.