CEU Center for EU Enlargement Studies (CENS) hosted a public lecture on 6 March 2013 entitled “Federalism in the context of an enlarged EU”. The lecture was delivered by Dr. François Saint-Ouen, Senior Lecturer at the European Institute of the University of Geneva and Secretary General of the European Cultural Centre.

Dr. François Saint-Ouen opened his presentation by talking about the concept of federalism in Europe, which is not a new model. As a matter of fact, he emphasized, it was mentioned three times in the Schuman Declaration, which only later became a debatable issue thanks to Margaret Thatcher. Nowadays, there is a new interest in the idea of federalism. Saint-Ouen mentioned the three basic theoretical orientations in the EU: first, intergovernmental approach, which is followed by international organizations and the Council of Europe; second, integrationalism approach, which was invented to bypass national sovereignty to focus on sectoral issues, which is followed by the European Commission for instance; third, federalist approach, which is present in the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Saint-Ouen reminded that the main component of the federalism logic is to follow a global notion, and is based on accountability, transparency and responsibility.

In the second part of his speech, Saint-Ouen underlined the two orientations of the federalist approach: state approach (focused on institutions and states with the reference to the USA) and citizens’ approach (focused on both citizens and culture). He also summarized federalism as ‘organized freedom’.

In the concluding remarks, Saint-Ouen stressed that as far as the process of EU enlargement is concerned, he is in favor of giving the non-EU countries an opportunity to take part in democracy. They will join the EU not only for political and economic reasons, but because it is where they naturally belong to.

The lecture was followed by a lively question and answer session touching upon a variety of issues. The lecture was chaired by Péter Balázs, Director of CENS and former Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs.