Pawel Swieboda, President of DemosEUROPA, proposes that future treaty reforms should be about single issues such as energy & climate change or foreign policy. This would meet the criticism that new treaties are incomprehensible with a confusing array of changes.

Single issue treaties would mean that the citizens are taken seriously and considered genuine partners in the discussion. More truth rather than less would help the European project. Importantly, the integration project would advance on substance rather than merely on the institutions as in the last decade.

A commentator once said after the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997 was passed that “fudge is the necessary condition of progress in Europe”. That sentence no longer holds. Fudge is not the condition of progress. It is a condition of regression. The sooner we realise it the better.

This is a very interesting idea which should be studied.