Reconfiguring Europe held its second plenary workshop on 13–14 November 2025 at the Hertie School’s Jacques Delors Centre in Berlin, bringing together the project team for two days of focused discussion.
Over two days, the Reconfiguring Europe team explored how EU capacities evolve across policy areas—from spending and procurement to industrial policy.
The first day began with a welcome and introduction by Markus Jachtenfuchs, after which the team delved into how the EU develops and deploys its capacities across various policy areas. Discussions ranged from spending governance, joint procurement to the balance between competence and control in the Single Market. Participants also examined the Commission’s growing role in steering national industrial policy. The conversations throughout the day showed just how differently integration plays out across fields.
The second day shifted toward clarifying the project’s core concepts and exploring concrete examples that bring them to life. Discussions ranged from hidden capacity building in the EU budget to how populist governments navigate EU constraints, and how national approaches to punishment reveal deeper variation in core state powers.
The workshop strengthened the project’s analytical foundations and advanced its mission to understand how Europe’s governance system is being reconfigured.