> EU is asking countries to give up their right to veto foreign policy decisions. Any country can veto this proposal.
Hopefully it well be vetoed by more than one. There is no realistic alternative to veto in the situation the EU is in. It could be an option later on, they have to be patient, now is the worst time to move towards coercive powers.
Especially under such a nonsensical pretext:
>> Von der Leyen uses Orbán defeat to push for end of veto in EU foreign policy
Orban was defeated, democracy worked, veto power is no longer under the threat of abuse, if it ever was. A lot of other issues could be improved in the EU, do that instead of fixing what's not broken.
Some think this is one of the major broken thing in the EU, the inability to handle quickly, speak with one voice.
Veto right is actually very undemocratic: A minuscule minority overrules the vast majority. but it was the only way to convince countries to form the EU.
And to be fair, it’s a way of protecting minorities.
> There is no realistic alternative to veto in the situation the EU is in.
Many many people disagree on this. There is no alternative to supporting Ukraine as much as possible. Very uncomfortable truth, shitty situation, and unfortunately, delusion/denial is a very common (and very relatable) human reaction to such situations.
It's also a recipe for indecision and paralysis, see the term "Polish parliament", which refers to what helped bring the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, at the time one of the largest empires in Europe, to collapse.
> A minuscule minority overrules the vast majority.
This is not a game of numbers, numbers would have some weight if decisions were affecting everyone equally, but the EU isn't homogeneous, foreign policy issues affect different countries differently depending on geography, culture and history e.g. Central Europe is much less exposed to adverse events, dependencies and risks than the periphery.
As I said before, now it's not the time for coercive changes, wait until integration takes its course and makes the political environment approximately the same for all members, the EU is far from that now.
> but it was the only way to convince countries to form the EU.
Then don't alter the deal and ask everyone to pray for not altering it any further.
> There is no alternative to supporting Ukraine as much as possible.
Depends on what each of the EU members considers possible and what risky - forcing some countries to go against their economic and political security will most likely lead to re-partitioning of Europe and another age of European wars.
It's quite disturbing to observe the continuous lack of an honest conversation about the political realities in Europe, which is precisely how the leading countries of the EU blew Ukraine / Russia... removing veto power only reduces the incentives for that to ever happen.
> and this veto thing is really crippling the EUs ability to act.
That's the point of it. As it is, there's no reasonable assurance that acts approved by the majority won't sacrifice some of the existential interests of members deemed expendable - "for the greater good". We all know that there's no connection between what politicians promise and what they do - until that changes, having the ability to cripple their actions will continue to be indispensable.
> What is tariffs affect one country more than the others, should it be allowed to veto a tariff decision?
I don't know if individual EU members are allowed to impose additional, national tariffs on non-EU products but why not - a lot of issues can be resolved by giving members more freedom and more say in decision making rather than more coercion.
> What if a majority wants to alter the deal?
They can alter it only for themselves in the way I described above.
It's disingenuous to call the EU dysfunctional and blame that dysfunction on lack of coercive powers. Maybe the EU is functional exactly as much as its levels of development and integration allow, maybe pushing for more creates unacceptable political risks, there's a lot to consider here looking at the excessively bloody and inadequately smart history of Europe - it was a power keg and it still is. Removing veto power won't make it better, it can actually make it go off again, risk is what really tips the scales here.
The point of it _was_ to get more countries on board, because at the time, they had no clue how the EU would act and needed insurances.
Now, if a majority does not want this veto anymore, it should be removed. But the minority vetoing it, will hold the majority hostage.
> having the ability to cripple their actions will continue to be indispensable
No, it’s crippling, not indispensable. EU cannot do anything and hence becomes irrelevant internationally, which in turns negates all the benefits of being a member of the EU and countries just leave.
I suggest the other way around: Remove veto, anyone that doesn’t like it leaves and the remaining ones hopefully get a better EU out of it. But it will be painful to get there.
I think you are not getting the problem: If all decisions are vetoed, what happens?
> They can alter it only for themselves in the way I described above.
You are suggesting they leave the EU and create EUv2.
I suggest that if they are the majority, they change EU, and the minority that doesn’t like it leaves (and create another EU if they want).
> looking at the excessively bloody and inadequately smart history of Europe
yeah, and it is getting bloody again and the veto is preventing the EU to have a sound strategy. Just wait, do nothing, watch…
And quoing “I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." is very misleading. Members of the EU can leave. Leaving the Empire was not really an option.
> what would I do if giving up the right to veto hinged on my veto power?
Was that a rhetoric question? Of course it is a leap of faith. But the idea is that it will make the union as a whole stronger, and then maybe even giving up your veto right would make it worthwhile.
I remember clearly that 20 years ago when they were trying to pass their constitution they were saying: "do not worry we can transfer all power to the EU because any country could always veto it so it is safe"
Out of curiosity, can there not be something like a two party or N party veto? i.e. requiring a minimum of two or N parties to work together to veto?
The choice between just a single party having a veto power vs no party with veto powers seems a little black and white to me. Happy to be enlightened on the matter.
As a Pole, I am torn. It would help fight Russian advances for sure, but it would also mean appeasing Israel. Spain's fierce stance against genocide in Palestine would be nearly impossible in a collective EU foreign policy.
I might have missed something: Why is fighting Russia equivalent to supporting Israel? Honest question, I have a hard time motivating myself to follow the news at the moment…
Fighting Russia and supporting Israel is mostly an EU stance right now, including of van der Leyen. In general, EU countries so far rather appease Israel, with notable exceptions of Spain and Ireland.
It hasn't made sense for loads of nations since 2008 and they've loudly complained about it, but the political will to leave isn't there due to lack of flashpoint social issues.
This rightly points out that many issues that are known will have their veto used don't even get brought up. Removal of the veto will stop this and I expect lightning rod topics and disputes to occur much more frequently.
Same with the free-riding comment. Removing the veto will expose some nations "true colors" in ways that most do not anticipate. It's not all sunshine and rainbows of agreement among the EU member states.
> many issues that are known will have their veto used don't even get brought up.
It's quite disingenuous to blame the veto power for lack of discussion on important issues, if anything it's an argument in favor of the veto, because the only reason to avoid discussion when you lack coercive power is weak arguments... and there's no need to waste time with such nonsense.
> Removing the veto will expose some nations "true colors" in ways that most do not anticipate.
Another slippery argument - there is absolutely no reason to hide the "true colors" of veto-capable members you disagree with, actually the opposite is true, one will have to come up with more, more convincing and true-color-exposing arguments in order to apply pressure via the electorate of the true colors.
> It's not all sunshine and rainbows of agreement among the EU member states.
No it's not, there are shady forces who dream about coercion for the worse.
I see no path where this would be a good idea unless you want to create a group where everyone thinks the same. If Hungary is a bit of a flip flop in terms of democracy then either they have to focus their attention on improving living conditions there so people realize the value of their alliance (if that's the purpose, improving living conditions) or realize that Hungary isn't a good fit for this type of alliance and kick it out.
Removing veto power probably makes it more likely that the next Orban pulls them out of the EU entirely which might not be in the interest of the alliance.
Would you let one or two cities have veto power over the policy of an entire country? If not then what's the difference here? If yes do you think that would work?
Of course the important thing is to decide what should be handled at the city, region, nation and EU level. There's a tradeoff. Decisions made at lower levels are generally better for accountability and give better adaptability to local circumstances but on the other hand they often lose leverage.
A city wouldn't be able to talk as an equal to large companies like Apple and Google for example, even many countries can't. But the EU can. Replace Apple / Google by Russia / China / US and it's even worse.
> Would you let one or two cities have veto power over the policy of an entire country?
And this is why analogies are bad.
A few important details:
1) The EU is not a country.
2) The one-country veto already has limited applications within the context of the EU. Foreign policy is one of the most important, but most EU laws start from the Commission and go through Parliament instead where they pass by a simple majority.
3) What von der Leyen is in effect asking for is for EU member nations, who are sovereign and with each having their own foreign policy, to subordinate their foreign policy to the EU’s foreign policy. That is a massive power shift from the members to the EU Commission.
Political structures exist to influence the world around them.
A thousand or even a few hundred years ago most people travelled very little and often were born, lived and died in the same village. At that time the village was the natural unit of organisation.
As communications improved, with horses, trains, planes, internet the unit of political organisation had to scale up to cities, regions, nations and now supra national organisations like the EU
The nation state is an outdated concept that has lived its time.
In a world where those we need to talk to are the US, China, Russia even big EU countries like France and Germany are too small so we need to scale up.
The nation-state is a current living concept that nation-states and their peoples for the most part are incredibly attached to. If you want to convince the peoples of the EU that is an outdated concept that has lived its time, that is a tough and long road ahead of you, or von der Layen if that is the road she’s pursuing but right now there’s plenty of national governments well beyond Hungary that have been displeased with von der Leyen specifically stepping on their toes.
Right now, the way the EU is constituted, the EU takes a backseat to national governments on most foreign policy. Trade is the biggest exception. Reversing that is as an ask she can make, but it’s an enormous ask that if the member states of the EU concede to, will still be an enormous concession, and it’s not something the EU is structurally positioned under its own Treaties and laws to either command nor demand.
First, Hungary is not a "a bit of a flip flop in terms of democracy". They are just not fully democratic country anymore, full stop. The system there did not changed, judiciary, media and the rest of the country are as much in the hands of a leader and easy to be abused as yesterday. The person on top of it changed. He did promised reforms, it remains to be seen whether they happen or not.
But second, regardless of Hungary, anyone can veto is dysfunctional system.
> unless you want to create a group where everyone thinks the same.
Everyone has veto is literally a system where everyone must think the same, else nothing will happen.
> Removing veto power probably makes it more likely that the next Orban pulls them out of the EU entirely which might not be in the interest of the alliance.
That would be bad for Hungary, but good for the rest of Europe. Hungary presence in EU was damaging to EU for years now.
This is a very simplistic view. There are benefits to approving things one dislikes slightly: like being able to influence decisions which are personally important. Rejecting things you disagree a bit with just because you can leads to being ignored. Like for example Orban - did anyone in the EU take this guy seriously in the past few years? EU more or less talked over his head (and the head of Slovakia as well)
and yet this is clearly not what has happened. you COULD make any decision hostage, but thats not what anyone does, as such, the veto has a very important purpose, and removing it would be betraying the terms that the union was based on, just because people are now members. its basically "I altered the deal, pray I dont alter it further"
> Hmmm, what would I do if giving up the right to veto hinged on my veto power?
If you're like most politicians, you would do what most politicians do - bargain.
For example: agree on veto removal but keep farm subsidies for another X years, or unblock the new "common debt" fund (or enshrine "no common debt fund", depending on which way you lean).
Member states politicians have made far more far-reaching decisions for far less: let us not forget Cameron promised the Brexit referendum to increase his chances of winning an election - and then, fascinatingly, followed through.
As an EU citizen from a small state with little real power in the bloc, I'm all for the replacement of veto with a quorum. I'd not want to see EU deadlocked over any major issue just because any tiny country with the population of a London borough can wield it to settle a score with their neighbour.
Ask any Macedonian what they had to go through for the EU carrot. First they were vetoed by Greece because it didn't like the name. Fine, they changed it. Then they were vetoed by France (which previously was fine with this) because whatever.
Or ask any Ukrainian what they think of essential monetary aid, approved by (representatives of) a few hundred million Europeans, being held hostage by Putin's chum.
Even in less life-or-death cases, there's a lot of really (long-term) damaging horse-trading behind the scenes to wring concessions of everyone because of the veto problem. It's a perversion of democracy.
Brussels appears to be extremely tone deaf to the basic needs of ordinary people, and taking further steps in a direction to centralize power is just going to push more people to the far right.
For example, the fact that right-wing governments in central and eastern Europe are protecting their borders, represents a very popular perspective, apparently shared by very few in the EU governing body.
Consolidating power at a moment when many EU policies are clearly unpopular seems like it will have unintended consequences.
It is really make or break for the EU "regime".
This is because the EU never had a clear goal and so the project cannot be finished if it was to survive.
First it was about harmonizing law and standards, then the Euro and stabilizing and rebuilding the eastern Europe. All those things were good ideas and great successes, but now what?
This is why they really wanted to absorb Turkey 20 years ago, and now Ukraine, Brussels needs a new project so it can justify it's existence and expansion.
So it becomes a devouring mother who keep their 40 years old kids at home and try to find new one to adopt.
The EU is also unfortunately a very pre-Internet and pre-globalization project.
Just put yourself in the shoes of the previous generations who had to imagine a system to have Germany, Portugal and Greece adopt standards to be able to work efficiently together? This is a very hard problem in 1970 or 1980.
Today if Greta from Hamburg want to get in business with Portugal she search on Google, send an email, go on a Zoom meeting with real time translation and can pay with a stablecoin. If she need to figure out some laws in Portugal she can ask ChatGPT. This was science fiction 50 years ago.
That is not even necessary, she can go on aliexpress and do business in China instantly. China is not part of the EU but it seems we are very interconnected and do a lot of business with China anyway. And your shipment from China is protected by the Seventh fleet, not the EU.
Protecting the borders or raising an army? those are not things a bureaucracy know how to do or can do... it was not designed for this.
So yes the EU is trying to find a new frontiers: physical, ideological or digital. This is why in recent year it has been a lot about regulating the Internet, social media, porn, crypto, chat, AI, etc. But regulating a technology when the cat is already out of the bag is really hard so they will have to get China level authoritarian to show some results.
The EU has a problem with a lack of legitimisation of the whole political construct and other power players know about this weakness. The degree of freedom in political decision is strongly inhibited.
This wouldn't solve any problems either, on the contrary. Personally I don't feel like a EU citizen. It is like being a citizen of a bureaucratic monster that serves no specific function. That tries to justify its existence not through being a guardian of common values, but a bureaucracy of not-quite-experts.
I genuinely wonder about people that feel patriotic about the EU. I have nothing against them, I just don't want to share the same house.
Orban was someone to point the finger to for what feels like decades. To see this result and extract a mission to extend EU powers is delusional in my opinion.
I think the EU is just a bunch of countries in a trenchcoat. The main reason for this is the lack of mobility between countries. Each country has its own language, and more importantly social security, benefits, taxes, and the properties are much more expensive compared to salaries than pretty much anywhere in the world.
So either you're a long term renter with locked in low rates, or own an apt, so you have very little incentive to move. People who do move usually come from a poorer part to a richer part, and once in their lives, or they move to a warmer country like Spain when they retire.
It's so much easier to move aroud, both for short term travel and longer term too. The common currency (at least in most countries) really helps as do things like no roaming charges. If you decide you want to go and look for a job in another country you just do it, no visa hassle or asking permissions.
I was born in the UK and moved to France (long before Brexit thank goodness) it would have been much harder without the EU.
I certainly consider myself a EU citizen, more than British or French (I now have both nationalities).
Of course it's not perfect but getting rid of individual coutry vetoes would help with a lot of things in the wider geopolicital sphere - and has already been done in many domains)
Moving around easily and not having to show your passport is often an argument for the advantages. In reality this is more or less completely insignificant, even if you do travel a lot. Some bureaucratic barriers changing nationalities aren't relevant in contrast to what the EU brings to the table.
Meanwhile, while people can vote for an inhibited parliament, it is far too removed from the average citizen that neither knows the people they are voting for, nor can they probably understand them.
VdL would have never been successful if people understood what she was saying or had said in the past. It is a democratic circus and a clear symptom.
What EU country are you from? For me there where mostly upsides of being in the EU. Free travel, better consumer legislation, more invidual rights and protections, etc.
There could also hardly be a worse representative than von der Leyen. She is the perfect example of an incredibly unpopular and even incapable (she did terribly as the German minister of defense) but cunning career politician who SOMEHOW made it to a top position in the EU.
It was election, but Hungarian democracy is severely lacking and barely a democracy. A miracle happened, because too many people were too pissed at Orban. That does not make the country non autocratic, it means miracle happened and now new guys has all that power.
Mostly because I know more about Hungarian system then you. It is was not clearly proven as such. The system is still heavily favoring one party. Just because you can flip who is on top of all stars align and 80% of voters come in mostly does not make it functional democracy worth the name. Orban was able to stay in power so long, because anything less then that would mean he gets all that power again. Opposition media and parties in the country were destroyed long time ago. Judiciary is routinely abused.
Simple as that. Yes, it was pro-democracy, anti-Russia, pro-EU vote. That does not mean Hungary changed over time. It means it has one last chance at reform. If it does not reform, there will be no way to flip it in elections the next time.
And yes, American conservative fans of Orban know all of that - Rubio, Vance, Rod Dreher, Peterson. They loved and admired the arrangement and want to emulate it.
"one last chance to reform", i dont buy it. these things happen, and will happen again. people have been predicting doom for thousands of years, but this time its truly the last!
Yes they do. A kindergardener can lead their kindergarden in an autocratic style. That means they (=auto) decide (=cratos) things and don't e.g. ask others (=demos) in a democratic sense.
Then they can still end up being fired. Autocratic is a style of leadership, and nowhere in the definition does it say autocrats can't be removed from their position of power. Sure, it is hard to remove autocrats once they have consolidated power, but that doesn't mean they are not autocrats before they did.
Whst you do is like calling a fire only a fire if it burns down a house. But that would be too late you know?
I think there's quite a difference between calling someone an autocrat vs an autocratic leader, the latter being more of a characterization of how they are leading, which is I imagine why those words were chosen.
Hmmm, what would I do if giving up the right to veto hinged on my veto power?