Managed Expectations EU Member States’ Views on the Conference on the Future of Europe

As the ‘masters of the treaties’ and with the decisive role of the Council in EU legislation, the Conference will only be as effective as the member states allow it to be, and any change in policies, institutions or the EU treaties can only occur if approved and implemented by the EU-27. [...] Outlook In the difficult run-up to the Conference on the Future of Europe, the Council has been the EU institution with the most reservations about the format and aim of the exercise. [...] Horizontally, the Conference should also aim to increase the democratic legitimacy of the EU, including through increased transparency of the EU’s legislative work and by considering opportunities to strengthen the role of national parliaments in the day-to- day work of the EU. [...] The government emphasises Latvia’s longstanding priorities of maintaining and strengthening the achievements of the EU, such as the functioning of the single market and the Schengen area, as well as economic convergence and cohesion, and would like to see Latvia at the core of the EU in the economic sphere. [...] The opinion was quite explicit with respect to support for the current institutional status quo in the EU, in particular the support for more effective common action on the Strategic Agenda for 2019-24 within the current framework of the EU Treaty, preserving the current number of commissioners and the current institutional set up of the EU leadership.