Fundamental Rights in an Uncertain Future: Strategic foresight for Europe 2040

This section sketches one possible Europe in 2040, drawing on the insights gained from the foresight exercise and the analysis of the exploratory scenarios developed during the process. It is not a prediction, and several developments it depicts are already visible today. In this Europe, the effects of uncertainty, the results of adaptation to existing megatrends and the long-term consequences of decisions made today are clearly visible.

The signs of adaptation are visible in ordinary places. Streets, homes, schools, hospitals, public transport and digital services continue to change in response to climate change, ageing populations, new technologies and shifting security concerns. Some adaptations make life easier, safer or more accessible. Others have created new dependencies, exclusions or forms of uncertainty that affect people’s autonomy, dignity and equal access to services.

Digital systems support many routines of daily life, often in the background. They help people access services, work, learn, participate and receive care. Yet their importance is most visible when systems fail, when decisions are difficult to understand or when people are unable to use digital channels on equal terms. The question is no longer whether societies will be digital but how digital systems shape power, access, agency and the ability to understand and challenge decisions that affect people’s rights.

Public life unfolds against a backdrop of familiar uncertainty. Environmental pressures, technological disruption, economic insecurity and geopolitical instability do not affect everyone in the same way. Some communities are better protected, better connected and better able to adapt. Others experience disruption resulting from insecure housing, strained services, precarious work, limited ability to get around independently or reduced access to information and access to effective remedies when their rights are breached.

Institutions, communities and individuals increasingly assume that change will continue. Adaptation remains essential, but so does anticipation: identifying risks before they become acute, considering their long-term consequences and preparing for more than one possible future. This changes expectations of public authorities. People expect institutions to act quickly when risks are urgent but also to explain their decisions, remain open to scrutiny and adjust measures when harmful or unequal impacts become visible.

Debates about prosperity, innovation, security and sustainability have also become more connected. Innovation is judged by what it makes possible, who benefits, who is exposed to risk and whether harmful effects can be challenged. Prosperity is assessed through growth and competitiveness but also access to services, decent work, social protection and opportunity. Security encompasses protection from harm and the requirement that crisis response remains lawful, proportionate, accountable and open to challenge.

Long-term considerations increasingly shape decisions on climate policy, public investment and emerging technologies. Questions about future generations are no longer abstract. They arise whenever today’s choices may lock in environmental damage, technological dependencies, public debt, institutional weakness or unequal opportunities.

Europe in 2040 is not shaped by one single trajectory but by tensions between urgency and deliberation, innovation and safeguards, and present needs and future responsibilities. Its resilience also depends on people’s ability to understand, claim and realise their rights as conditions change.