Strategic foresight and anticipatory governance in the EU’s better regulation framework

Organised by

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• EGPP: European Governance and Politics Programme

The challenges of contemporary politics require swift and responsive policy solutions. Maintaining decision-making agility in times of urgency makes it indispensable to explore future options ahead of crises. To increase systemic resilience, policies must hence be designed in an adaptive manner that makes best use of future-oriented thinking and anticipatory governance.

The 2021 revision of the EU’s Better Regulation framework put the mainstreaming of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) centre-stage of EU policy-making. With this reinforcement, the futurity required to deliver on the SDGs was meant to be supported by long-term regulatory logics. The connections between EU regulation and reflections on possible future developments therefore became essential to EU governance. As a key instrument to achieve this, strategic foresight was integrated into the EU’s policy armoury. The presentation will discuss the position and role of as well as the space for foresight and anticipatory governance within EU policy-making.