The European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) annual conference will be held in Brussels on Thursday 13 November. As in previous years, the conference will be co-hosted by the European Commission and the European Parliament.

At a time of global upheaval and uncertainty, this conference will focus on the future and the strategic choices facing the European Union as it charts its own course in the coming decade and more. Decision-makers are frequently faced with multiple and sometimes overlapping crises to which they are required to find quick solutions. The need to think about the longer-term and how to build our collective resilience to deal with shocks and unforeseeable threats - to be able to 'stay the course' - has rarely been more pressing.

The speakers at this 12th annual ESPAS Conference will aim to shed light on some of the fundamental challenges Europe will face in the fields of technology, geopolitics, democracy and intergenerational fairness. And together we will explore possible scenarios for charting a course towards 2040. How can the European Union harness transformative technologies such as AI? Where should it position itself in a new world order, and how can we shape it? How can European democracy be revitalised and societies respond to creeping authoritarianism? How can we build a new intergenerational fairness agenda?

These and other epoch-defining challenges decision-makers face cannot simply be overcome using short-term fixes. Politicians are increasingly looking for anticipatory, longer-term thinking that offers them pathways to improved policy outcomes. Foresight, with its inherent ability to harness collective intelligence and promote long-term thinking, plays an increasingly important role in supporting European policy-makers to make the right strategic choices.

Our aim in ESPAS is to help European Union policy-makers prepare better for the shocks and opportunities that come our way, but also to offer a structured approach with practical tools to look beyond today's challenges. This annual ESPAS conference with leading political figures, civil society representatives, policy experts and foresight practitioners offers a unique platform to bring foresight and policy-making together in a European context. It also provides a significant and timely opportunity to explore new ideas for Europe's future, and to help shape its priorities for the coming decades.

👉 See the programme 

This is the fourth ESPAS (European Strategy and Policy Analysis System) global trends report since the establishment of this inter-institutional EU foresight process in the early 2010s. As on previous occasions, it is being published in a year when the European Union embarks on a new five-year institutional cycle. The report analyses the key global trends towards the year 2040 and their possible impact on the Union, and sets out some strategic choices and questions that Europe's leaders may need to address in the coming five years and beyond. The report is the product of a unique collaborative process over the past year involving officials from across the nine ESPAS institutions and bodies.

The report sets the centrality of geopolitics as a transversal trend, given the on-going shift from an era of cooperation to an era of competition as well as the deepening fragmentation of the international system and the acceleration of major global transitions. The Report highlights how the borders between EU internal policy and external policy are blurring nowadays and will probably blur even more in the future. The primacy of geopolitics is outlined across the various trends identified in the report: from the economic challenges to demography, from the environmental and climate crisis to the energy transition, from the quest for equality to the technological acceleration, and including health, democracy and the broader changes on how we live.

The publication concludes by outlining the strategic imperatives for the incoming EU leadership. It calls for a multifaceted approach to establish the EU as a smart global power, ensure a socially equitable green transition, navigate economic risks, update the economic model, innovate within a balanced regulatory framework, and strengthen social cohesion.

Between now and 2040, Europe and the world will undergo profound geopolitical, economic, technological and social change. The generation now growing up will live in a world that we can only imagine. However, integrating long-term goals into short to medium-term decision-making can boost our chances of leaving a world that is in better shape to the next generation. The more we understand the challenges ahead, the better we can anticipate and prepare for the changes to come. There are grounds for optimism. The EU has arguably been able to make progress in the past precisely when the challenges seemed overwhelming. When pressed, it can marshal reserves of determination and ingenuity. The next EU leadership will need to draw deeply on these reserves in the years ahead.

Source: EEAS Global Trends to 2040: Choosing Europe’s Future

The latest report of the ESPAS network, Choosing Europe’s Future, analyses global trends in order to identify key strategic challenges for the EU as the next legislative cycle begins. It is the fruit of collaboration between nine EU institutions and bodies. Key takeaways include the importance of being able to act quickly, given that game-changing developments can happen suddenly. It notes the risk of false economies; in areas such as defence and security, for example, efforts to avoid costs now can mean far greater costs in the future. The report points to the importance of threat multipliers and gain multipliers. Action to mitigate social fragmentation can prevent knock-on effects in other domains; the development of effective clean technologies can bring dividends across the board.

Think Tank European Parliament - Research - Advanced search - Choosing Europe's future: The 2024 ESPAS report