The Reding initiative led a group of foreign affairs ministers of the European Union to put together a reflection group animated by the German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle on the future of Europe. The plan also served as inspiration and guidance to the report prepared in June 2012 by Herman Van Rompuy, José Manuel Barroso, Jean Claude Juncker and Mario Draghi to the European Council on the need to develop the united European continent into a genuine Economic and Monetary Union.