The Future of EU Integration – A debate with Bocconi students

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a key policy by the EU to equalize carbon costs between domestic production and imports, aiming to prevent carbon leakage and promote sustainable practices globally.

The Green Deal often targets decarbonization in a fragmented manner, with policy areas touching on specific industries or stages in the energy life-cycle rather than on a system level. This proposal recommends an increase in EU-wide integration, from both an energy system perspective and a carbon trading and usage one.

With the Green Deal as a cornerstone of the UN Agenda 2030, there is an urgent need to mobilize investments in the EU to achieve sustainability goals. Current EU efforts should be redefined to more effectively support clean energy production and technological innovation, supported by a revised integrated funding system, so as to attract domestic investors back. To address these matters, we propose initiatives that tackle pressing issues such as the development of education programs to bridge the skill gap, the reduction of brain drain, and the implementation of a more cohesive scientific research environment.

The EU faces challenges in policy implementation due to discrepancies between its legislation and national enforcement, risking fragmented interpretations and inefficiency. Balancing interstate diversity with collective goals can lead to delayed or ineffective policy application. To improve this, the EU should consider mechanisms of statutory regulation of legal interpretation and focus on developing Directives with clear Implementation Frameworks, in line with the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

One Europe, one direction, same speed. Where the European Union doesn’t expand, another power will, and later might be too late. To escape from apathy we must be courageous and faster, we must dare to: switch to transnational lists for EU elections, revise the accession criteria, provide financial investments and incentives.

The policy proposal that I have drafted serves to illustrate the advantages and drawbacks of current EU policy vis-à-vis enlargement, as well as to propose possible solutions that I deemed suitable to said drawbacks. That said, this proposal does not serve as an endorsement nor critique of enlargement, only an edification on the current state of affairs. Furthermore, I briefly discuss some implementation strategies and how to measure the success of any implementations.