The European Commission wants to scrap unanimous voting on the bloc’s foreign policy decisions
The European Commission has announced plans to scrap consensus-based decision-making in EU foreign policy, in a step that could sideline member states resisting Brussels’ line.
Brussels has long weighed replacing unanimity – a founding principle of EU foreign policy – with majority voting, arguing the change would speed up decisions and stop individual states from blocking measures such as sanctions and military aid for Ukraine. Under the current system, all 27 members must agree for decisions to pass. The proposed reform would require a qualified majority, meaning decisions would be adopted if backed by a set threshold of states.
In her ‘state of the union’ address on Wednesday, Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said it was time to “break free from the shackles of unanimity,” and insisted that the bloc act “faster.”
“I believe that we need to move to qualified majority in some areas, for example in foreign policy,” she stated.
The EC chief, who has repeatedly invoked the “Russian threat” to justify military aid to Ukraine, sanctions, and the push for accelerated militarization, was met with opposition from Slovakia and Hungary. Both governments have repeatedly threatened to use their veto powers to block EU actions they view as harmful to their national interests.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has warned that removing members’ veto power on foreign policy would spell the end of the bloc and could be “the precursor of a huge military conflict.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban has dismissed officials in Brussels as “bureaucrats” and argued that abandoning consensus would undermine national sovereignty, as member states could be dragged into wars without their consent. Orban said the EU is on the verge of collapse and will not survive beyond the next decade without a “fundamental structural overhaul” and disentanglement from the Ukraine conflict.
Moscow has accused the West of pursuing “uncontrolled militarization” to prepare for war with Russia, while dismissing claims it intends to attack NATO or EU states as “nonsense.” Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have accused Western leaders of fearmongering to justify inflated military budgets and to cover up their economic failures, insisting that aid to Kiev only prolongs the hostilities.
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