Preparing for Multi-Level Futures: The CoR and Strategic Foresight

Strategic foresight has seen increasing prominence as a policy-making tool in the European Union over the past two decades, which has led for instance to the creation of the inter-institutional European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) and the publication of five-yearly, as well as annual foresight reports. ESPAS brings together nine different EU institutions and bodies, including the European Committee of the Regions (CoR). The Committee of the Regions exercises its function as a consultative body representing sub-national levels of governance in the EU policy making system through the issuing of formal opinions, as well as through a series of informal networking, awareness-raising and lobbying activities. Representing the sub-national levels which have key responsibilities in implementing EU policies and providing feedback to the EU institutions about them, the CoR plays an increasingly recognized role in the Commission’s better regulation efforts. The paper will explore how the CoR has been seeking to develop its own role in strategic foresight as one element of a life-cycle approach to good (or better) EU governance and a dynamic understanding of ‘active subsidiarity’ in the EU multi-level system. By tapping into the activities of CoR members’ regions or cities on the one hand and developing specific contributions to the inter-institutional debates on foresight on the other, the CoR wants to raise awareness about the Union’s territorial diversity in a future-related perspective, while at the same time bolstering its credibility as a crucial link between the EU and its diverse constituent elements.