The following contributions contain proposals that address the issue of the democratic deficit of the EU. Combining their experience and different perspectives as European citizens, the authors of the following papers went through a long process of reflection. Eventually, they elaborated several original proposals to reduce the democratic deficit. Far from adopting a utopian perspective, the authors provide us with practicable solutions that would not necessitate any treaty change and that could be easily put into place if decided. The last paper reflects upon another subject: EU defence. In the current context, French and the German leaders make pleas for the constitution of a European army and thus, the topic is very timely. Adopting once again a pragmatic perspective, the author reflects upon what can be seen as the necessary condition to see the emergence of a European army one day in the future: the constitution of an EU defence industry.