It is now 62 years since the Schuman Declaration which proposed an organised Europe. Happy Europe Day. These 62 years have seen one of the largest periods of prosperity and peace that Europe (certainly Western Europe) has ever seen and this is because of the unique way in which Member States come together to compromise and solve problems. It is a fantastic system and does, in some areas, work very well. The fact that, against all the odds and the cynics, 27 (soon to be 28) countries are able to work together to create solutions that make Europe stronger than the sum of its parts, is well worth celebrating.

According to the EU’s website: “Europe Day is the occasion for activities and festivities that bring Europe closer to its citizens and peoples of the Union closer to one another.”

We would object to one element of this statement Europe Day should allow citizens to bring their European Institutions closer to them. We are not Europe’s citizens, the European Institutions are ours. This fundamental difference is often forgotten in Brussels, where turnout in European Parliamentary elections and no media scrutiny robs MEPs of any real democratic legitimacy and unelected, and unaccountable Commission staff make politically loaded decisions behind closed doors.

Even the European Citizens Initiative, a right for European Citizens to participate in EU decision making has been rigged so that participation is extremely unlikely.

Look at all that Europeans have achieved together in the past 62 years. We the people of Europe can lead institutional reform, and a day like today is here to remind us all that there is so much we are yet to achieve together in the future.

Over the course of the past few weeks, as we have posted articles on growth, one realisation struck us: the European Union is doing a lot more than people suspect. This came as a fantastic piece of news but it also raised two interesting issues. We first asked ourselves: why are the long-term strategy plans and pan-European cooperative projects not better advertised? We then turned to the question: If we know so little about what projects the European Union is undertaking, do we have any guarantee that our leaders are acting in our best interest?

This week, we therefore decided to look at governance in the European Union: who is making decisions and why are these decisions not more transparent and better communicated? We realised that these two issues are closely linked.

The four main bodies at the head of the European Union have clear separate functions and powers. The European Commission, composed of 27 members appointed by the Council and voted in by the European Parliament is the executive body of the Union. The European Council, mainly composed of the head of governments of the member states is the body setting a political direction to the Union, and is often  reported as having very strong powers, despite not having any formal ones. The European Parliament, is the only directly elected body and holds, along with the Council of the European Unioncomposed of the ministers of member states, the legislative power.

All these institutions have been designed and are being transformed with each new treaty with the goal of making them more accountable, transparent and powerful. However, a form of distrust remains anchored in citizens’ mind, as these institutions remain opaque and complex despite having increasingly greater powers. There are two main concerns with the current structure of European leadership. The first one being the perception of the Commission as too remote, unaccountable and technocratic and the second related difficulty being the lack of a European space for public debate.

The election of the Commission by the Parliament means that the Commission appears to citizens as an institution on which they have too little influence. Commissioners are generally little-known in their own country. They propose legislation to the Parliament, but lack the legitimacy to represent citizens’ interests. They implement legislation with an inevitable political bias and yet people think of the Commision as a merely technical, bureaucratic institution. On top of this, European citizens can feel that major decisions are taken over by the national leaders of the largest European countries. The recent EU summits were described by the press as being negotiations between the leaders of Germany, France and the UK. What voice for the other countries of the Council and for the other institutions of the EU was given in these discussions?

One of the reasons European citizens might feel left out of the European political process, or find it plainly uninteresting is the lack of public debate at a European scale. A number of initiatives to open this debate are regularly started, but few manage to reach an influence similar to that of national political debates. Explanations as to why this is the case have been put forward, such as language barriers, cultural differences, the lack of an EU-wide media platform or the fact that public debate is a local matter.

We believe however, that the lack of European public debate is not unavoidable. European citizens cannot be forced to feel European if they do not want to. But a number of young Europeans do and this is to be celebrated. It might take time, but any opportunity to support this shift should be welcomed. One step towards creating a true European debate arena, could be the coordination of local elections across Europe. It could also take the form of elections of key members of European institutions through universal suffrage. This would greatly contribute towards building a European social contract: offering European citizens the liberty to choose their European leaders and creating a space for European public debate. How would you feel about a leader from a smaller or newer country being elected, or about your own particular views not being shared by the elected representatives, some might ask.

The answer is simple: “aren’t these features of any real democracy?”

One of the paths Europe will need to follow to get its finances in better shape is that of growth, as we suggested in our previous proposal. A key element to allow European countries to follow a sustainable growth path is investment in innovation. There are two steps required for the development of technology: increasing access to physical capital, i.e. the means to produce technologic innovation and developing human capital: the brains to innovate.

A driver of innovation in Europe will therefore be its ability to nurture and develop talent.

Europe is already host to some of the best research centres in the world, scattered across the various member states. In addition, the European commission has managed to develop a strong network of research institutions and given them the means to interact, exchange and share their resources. The European Association for Nuclear Research, the European Space Agency are examples of cooperation at the European level.

This area is in fact an interesting instance of how European member states can act together to pursue a common goal. However the necessary funding to compete internationally, attract talent and retain creative minds has been more difficult to get on the scale required.

A few institutions have already been set up with the stated aim of bringing together resources for research across Europe. One example of such cooperation can be found in the 7^th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7), setup by the European Union for the funding of carefully selected research projects. This initiative aims at strengthening research in the European Research Area (ERA), with a particular emphasis on cross-border cooperation. It also allows researchers to gain access to a larger pool of financing. The current programme is endowed with€50bn to be deployed over 7 years.

New research initiatives will however require substantial amounts of financial support in order to finance equipment and attract leading scholars. Universities in the U.S.have historically managed to secure finance for scholarships and fellowships through large endowments, invested in mutual and alternative investment funds, and supported by a strong alumni network. However, some of these endowments have been hit quite severely by the financial crisis, and this solution is therefore not appropriate for the long-term commitments that research requires.

A large proportion of research and development in Europe is publicly funded, (34% versus 27% for the US and 15% in Japan) which limits the extent to which they can expand their capabilities and attract talent. More higher education institutions are also publicly funded in Europe compared to other developed countries. Finally, research and development in Europe currently represent 2% of GDP.

The commission has announced the objective of reaching 3% of GDP by 2020 in order to be aligned with the US and Japan. MEPs have also pledged to simplify administrative requirements for funding applications. Both objectives are key and are summarised in the green paper “Horizon 2020”

One difficulty that European governments will face is to reconcile the need to invest in innovation to support growth with public deficits under increasing stress. As public funds become scarce, European states will need to look for alternative financing mechanisms.

Optimisation of funding could be done through sharing a common research budget at the European level to avoid duplication of research projects. Another way to increase financing is to open more opportunities for private funding of independent research. The Max Planck Society for example registers and sells patents to commercialise ideas developed in their labs. Taken to a European scale a similar commercialisation of research could be highly beneficial to innovation in Europe. We also need to encourage companies to support research that does not provide immediate financial returns but which has the potential to drive the European economy in the long run. Companies will ultimately benefit from a market that is more innovative and demonstrates more sustainable growth potential.

One constraint that will need to be imposed on funding, is the requirement of independence for research institutes, to ensure that less financially profitable but socially desirable fields are not left out. This will need to be a focus point in rethinking the funding of research at the European level.

We would like Europe to offer:

• An incentive scheme for private companies to support independent research, without focusing on short-term returns
• A Europe-wide mechanism to facilitate the commercialisation of innovative research projects in order to incentivise researchers to stay in Europe

What do you think? Do you know of other current cooperation initiatives? Feel free to share any programmes that you have heard of!