Future Generations as Europe’s Democratic Blind Spot

The European project emerged as a long-term response to the immediate and tangible challenges facing all European countries in the aftermath of the Second World War. As such, what is now the European Union was envisioned from its inception as a project meant to transcend current generations to protect future ones. Yet today future generations have no rights or representation in the EU’s decisionmaking today. The EU institutions—as those in other jurisdictions—are not legally mandated to think for the long term and lack the tools to systematically design future-proof policies. This is set to get worse as Europe is an ageing continent, where the share of people over 55 in the total population will rise from just under 30 percent [today] to just over 40 percent by 2050. In other words, older generations are thus set to grab even more political power. To rebalance political power in the EU both at intergenerational and Intragenerational level, this essay puts forward a set of reform ideas capable of embedding future generations' interests into EU policy-making.