That’s a fantastic topic for engaging your secondary school students, as the European Union offers complex and timely issues for debate!
Here is a list of debate motions about the European Union, categorized by theme to help you select the most relevant and challenging topics for your classes.
🇪🇺 Debate Motions: The European Union
1. Economics and Finance
These motions focus on the financial policies and structures that govern the EU and the Eurozone.
- THW abolish the Euro and allow member states to revert to their national currencies.
- (THW = This House Would)
- THBT the EU should establish a common, binding Corporate Tax Rate across all member states.
- (THBT = This House Believes That)
- THW grant the European Central Bank (ECB) greater power to directly fund economic stimulus programs in struggling member states.
- THW link EU cohesion funds to the performance of member states’ democratic and judicial institutions.
2. Migration, Borders, and Security
These topics address the Schengen Area, border control, and the shared responsibility of managing migration.
- THW abolish the Schengen Area and reintroduce full border controls between member states.
- THBT the EU should adopt a mandatory, permanent quota system for distributing asylum seekers among all member states.
- THW create a unified European Army, replacing national armies for common security threats.
- THBT the EU should permanently ban the import of products produced using forced labor outside its borders.
3. Democracy, Sovereignty, and Institutions
These motions challenge the balance of power between national governments and the EU institutions.
- THW grant the European Parliament the sole right to initiate new legislation (currently held by the European Commission).
- THBT the EU should eliminate the veto power currently held by individual member states on foreign policy and taxation.
- THW allow any member state to hold a binding referendum on whether to leave the European Union every five years.
- THBT the decision-making process in the Council of the European Union is currently too opaque and undemocratic.
4. Climate Change and Environment
These debates focus on the EU’s leadership in environmental policy and the challenges of a ‘Green Deal.’
- THW place a punitive tax on all flights within the European Union.
- THBT the EU’s ambitious Green Deal places an unfair economic burden on its least developed member states.
- THW ban the sale of all new fossil fuel-powered cars across the EU by 2030, moving the current target forward.
- THBT the EU should prioritize its energy independence over its climate targets in the next five years.
5. Social and Cultural Policy
These motions involve topics of social integration, cultural identity, and common EU standards.
- THW mandate the teaching of a second EU language to all secondary school students across the bloc.
- THBT the EU should establish binding minimum wage standards across all member states.
- THW create a common European curriculum for teaching 20th-century history to promote a shared identity.