Pandora, Penelope, Polity: How to Change the European Union
Book launch with Andrew Duff
9th March 2015
Europe House, 32 Smith Square, London SW1P 3EU
Main Speaker: Andrew Duff
Comments from Quentin Peel
The European Union must move rapidly to federal union or risk disintegration. That is the central message of a new book by former MEP Andrew Duff.
The European Union enters 2015 amid profound uncertainty as to its future direction. The main task of a new round of treaty amendment will be to create the constitutional framework for fiscal and eventual political union, while somehow also dealing with the British demand for renegotiation of its terms of membership. Many of Europe’s leaders fear opening the ‘Pandora’s box’ of further constitutional change − but the box is already open, and the bigger risk lies in failing to take action.
Five years after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, Andrew Duff analyses what has worked and what has not worked under the new regime, not least in reaction to the financial crisis and ensuing economic slump. He urges the Juncker Commission to press forward with proposals for fiscal union which, he argues, must be run by a federal government.
In Pandora, Penelope, Polity: How to Change the European Union, Andrew Duff lays down a detailed blueprint for reform of the EU’s constitution, to give Europe a proper government that can meet the urgent challenges it faces as a continent.
