“Of course, if you say, well, we need to reform the EU to make it faster, then the question is OK, but how?” said Gilles Pittoors, a political science lecturer at KU Leuven.
“You could, for example, introduce QMV (Qualified Majority Voting) in the European Council on these foreign policy issues. But that raises a hell of a democratic issue,” he said.
Creating new bodies would solve nothing, he argued. “I think the best way forward here, if you’re really serious about reforming the EU to make it more agile, to make it respond more quickly, is to basically strengthen the powers of the Commission.” Yet that too faces skepticism from member countries wary of giving the EU executive too much power, he acknowledged.
When leaders gather for a summit this week, there will be one notable absence: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who after suffering a crushing defeat in an election this month said he would not attend. Without the chronic consensus-blocker in the room, one official said, the Council could overcome its divisions and reach compromises faster.
But time is of the essence. The meeting is once again set to be hijacked by war and geopolitics, with the U.S. blockading the Strait of Hormuz after Washington’s negotiations with Tehran fell through, and no end to the global energy shock in sight.
At least one headache should finally be alleviated: Ukraine is set to finally get its €90 billion loan from the EU, four months after the bloc’s leaders first agreed on it at a summit in December.