Strategic foresight is not new to the European Union. However, its use for better policymaking only increased in relevance in recent years, not least because of the succession of crises that Europe and the world faced. Yet, the potential for strategic anticipation, forethought and preparedness at the EU level is far from being fully exploited. As the structure of the new Commission is unveiled without explicit reference to foresight, in her second mandate von der Leyen should create a “Strategic Futures and Priorities Directorate” at the top of the Commission’s pyramid.
The use of strategic foresight increased in relevance in EU policymaking and beyond over the last few years, not least because Europe’s multiple crises. Regardless of how the next decade evolves, it is clear that a more or less heightened state of permacrisis is likely to endure, putting further stress on governments, EU institutions, and democratic decision- and policy-making.
Indeed, democracy has yet to catch up with the pace of change that characterises the ongoing poly-transitions (green, digital, economic, geopolitical and demographic). The COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine, and renewed conflict in the Middle East turbocharged some of these transitions, underlying the need for better anticipatory systems, preparedness, and resilience.
Furthermore, today’s complexity, volatility, and (polarised) uncertainty, make it increasingly more challenging to stay ahead of the curve or to compete with other global players that do not follow a democratic playbook. A way to overcome this is to invest in and mainstream anticipatory capabilities. If democracy cannot be faster, it needs to be smarter.
Foresight is neither about predictions nor about forecasts, which often project the present into the future until they eventually crash against reality. It is rather about dealing with uncertainty and preparing for the future by using different methods that rely on data and evidence, as well as on vision, to create different plausible outcomes and scenarios.
Foresight is an iterative process. More than an event or a report, it should involve all levels of decision-making, helping leaders find better answers for future challenges, questioning long-held assumptions and making strategic choices explicit. Foresight may not be a silver bullet – but if it is not followed by concrete policy action, it is a wasted opportunity.
The stress tests of the last Commission mandate (2019-2024) should be a harbinger for a new way of policymaking and governing. The threats Europe faced recently were either expected (e.g. pandemic) or should not have taken Brussels by surprise had the warnings been heeded (e.g. Russia’s aggressive revisionism). Yet, the EU at all levels was wholly unprepared when they finally struck. Can the EU afford to repeat these mistakes again? No, it needs to up its game or risk becoming increasingly irrelevant, and end up in an unanticipated crisis that runs out of control.
Foresight is not new to Brussels. What is new is its strategic application to policy-and decision-making. Among all EU institutions, the Commission is the one that is better prepared and equipped to think long-term: It serves the general EU interest, is less subject (but increasingly more so) to politicisation, and can combine “technical charisma”1 and strategic intelligence.
The appointment for the first time of a Vice President for foresight, the seasoned Maroš Šefčovič, was a bold step bearing fruits such as the creation of Commission foresight networks at the services’ level, as well as an EU-wide foresight network of ‘Ministers for the Future’ that is fostering the uptake of foresight at the member state level. Additionally, the Commission launched an Annual Foresight Report, which is now in its 4th edition. Yet, when embedded in a large institution, foresight can become a type of checklist, bureaucratic, ‘inter-service consultation’ – i.e., just another process. Vision and innovation are as relevant as process. This requires governance structures that include safe spaces for disruption, dissent and experimentation.
Hence, the missing link is a politically and strategically savvy ‘forethought’ directorate that can produce and translate foresight work into strategies and recommendations, while better embedding policy considerations and providing real-time intelligence from the ‘ground’ that can be used to correct ongoing decision-making processes. In its operations, beyond establishing a strong link to the Joint Research Centre (JRC), such a unit should have regular unimpeded access to top Commission decision-makers, including the President and the College; interact and coordinate with the foresight departments of member states, as well as those of the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, the EEAS and other EU bodies – also through the existing European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS); invest in and resource collaborations with independent think tanks; and not be subject to personal or cyclical political preferences.
In the Juncker Commission (2014-2019), some of these activities and features were initiated by the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), the Commission’s in-house think tank, in cooperation with other departments of the institution and ESPAS. Yet, if one looks carefully, the EPSC was more of an outlier in the extended family of internal think tanks inaugurated by Jacques Delors. For the most part, these units have been an extension of the President’s cabinet, like the new I.D.E.A., which has remained largely outside the public eye. The dismantling of the EPSC – although still far from the ideal model described above – set the strategy-and-foresight-clock at the top of the Commission back.
In the current setup, VP Šefčovič was mainly supported by the JRC (along with the Secretariat-General foresight unit and his Cabinet) in the preparation of the yearly foresight report, an innovation introduced by President von der Leyen, and the Foresight Newsletters (started in 2018 jointly by the EPSC and the JRC under the initiative of the SG) that occasionally are distributed in College. The brainpower of the JRC is unparalleled, but it lacks agility and strategic acumen, and it is located too far from the power centre: the Berlaymont’s top floors.
Among several structural innovations that the EU should adopt for the coming mandate, von der Leyen should set up a ‘Strategic Futures and Priorities Directorate’ at the top of the Commission’s administrative pyramid. To avoid political cycles and volatility, this new office should be permanently attached to the SG of the Commission and the President’s Cabinet, adopting the principle of ‘tolerated, but not embraced,’ to allow for independent advice. On many occasions, forethought will mean going against the tide, and large bureaucratic organisations tend be risk averse.
The directorate should be headed at the rank of Deputy-Secretary General (Chief Strategy Officer - CSO) with direct and permanent access to the Commission President, the president’s staff, the Executive VPs and the SG, and have a permanent seat in the College Meetings along with other senior civil servants. In the rigid hierarchical structures of the Commission, if a director-general holds the post, it will suffer from ‘peer syndrome’ and be unable to nudge the work of other directorate-generals.
The head of the directorate should be an external personality to the Commission of recognised merit. A substantial responsibility of the post-holder is to exert thought-leadership free from institutional shackles, internal career considerations or bureaucratic inclinations. While conserving loyalty to the institution and its president, they should avoid ‘going native.’ The remainder of the team should be composed of staff members (including two deputies to the CSO) as well as external strategists, innovators, and experts. The team should reflect Europe’s diversity, be trans-disciplinary and intergenerational.
With a mission to disrupt, innovate, anticipate, and prepare, the futures and priorities unit should spearhead the forethought work across the Commission, as well as coordinate with ESPAS, other EU institutions’ foresight outfits, member states and think tanks. Tapping on the networks that were created in the meantime, as well as on the extraordinary research and foresight work developed by the JRC, the unit should become the ‘translator-in-chief’ of insights into policymaking, strategies, and plans, as well as develop simulations and tabletop exercises for senior staff, including organising a yearly College ‘strategy future-proof retreat.’ It needs to be agile and flexible to respond to the immediate needs of the Commission’s political leadership while articulating the long-term vision of a decade, not a mandate.
There are downsides in this model too: from capture, turf wars and too many bosses to bureaucratisation, groupthink, and risk aversion. However, awareness about them provides a deliberate way to mitigate them.
As the permacrisis intensifies and the EU manages the poly-transitions, it cannot afford to continue being surprised and just reactive to events. Innovating on the current Commission foresight and forethought setup can help close current intelligence gaps, giving EU policymaking a better chance to stay ahead of the curve.
*The author was adviser on strategic foresight to the EPSC from 2017-2020.