Frustration at the deadlock is spilling into the open, with a growing group of countries led by Germany and Sweden pushing to severely limit — or totally scrap — national vetoes that allow a single capital to block action.
“We should abolish the unanimity principle in the EU in foreign and security policy before the end of the current legislative period so as to be better capable of acting internationally and to be truly grown-up,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Saturday, according to the German Funke Group. “All the experience that we have gained over recent weeks with aid for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia indicate this.”
Last month, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that discussions about using qualified majority voting to make foreign policy decisions would “come up again” among leaders.
The push comes as Hungary — less than a week out from its April 12 election — has repeatedly stalled major decisions, including the €90 billion loan to Kyiv, heightening concerns in other capitals that EU foreign policy outcomes can be held hostage to domestic politics. Even if Prime Minister Viktor Orbán were to lose power, diplomats warn the underlying problem would remain, with unanimity allowing any government to step into the same blocking role.
“There are serious problems in how we take decisions,” Spanish Socialist lawmaker Nacho Sánchez Amor, who sits on the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee told POLITICO. “Every month there’s a new issue that highlights this trend. We have to react.”
Another group — including France, Belgium and smaller member countries, which fear being steamrolled — are digging in to defend the veto right, arguing it is core to their national interest.
“Launching a debate now on European unanimity rules, I think, would be the shortest way to get it in real trouble,” Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever told reporters in Brussels last month.