Debate: Defending the European Union against the abuse of national vetoes
Date: WEDNESDAY, 14 DECEMBER 2022
Speaker: Mikuláš Bek
Language: EN

But experience shows that diplomacy and perseverance pay off since, in the overwhelming majority of cases, we manage to find solutions to overcome our differences and break the deadlock. True, this takes countless hours of talks and efforts to understand each other’s positions. Translating sometimes into late night or early morning compromises like we have been experiencing these days.  But this is how the Union works. The number of files which remain blocked over prolonged periods of time is rather insignificant, statistically speaking. Our swift reaction to the recent crisis shows our unity and capacity to find agreement in the interest of us all.  I would like to recall that unanimity is a voting modality provided by the treaties, albeit currently an exception from the rule, which is qualified majority voting, unanimity is typically applicable to decisions in the common foreign and security policy area. Well, treaties require the Council to act unanimously; the Act can only be adopted when Member States vote in favour. But, importantly, the treaty provides that abstentions do not prevent the act from being adopted.  In the area of the common foreign and security policy, there is also the so-called constructive abstention, which allows a Member State that uses this possibility not to apply the adopted decision while permitting the Union to go forward. This is what has been successfully used in the context of the European Peace Facility.  While there is a lot we can do through discussions and persuasion, a Member State remains free when expressing its vote in the Council, and this is a fundamental element of our European democracy. After all, Council members are responsible towards their citizens and their national parliaments for the action, including how they vote in the Council.  Treaty change would, of course, be one of the possible avenues that may also be considered to bring more areas under qualified majority voting. However, as you know, it is a very heavy procedure. This possibility has been discussed in the follow up to the Conference on the Future of Europe. More importantly, in many areas, it is possible to switch from unanimity to qualified majority voting without modifying the treaties. Indeed, the treaties contain one general and the six specific so-called passerelle clauses. They allow the European Council or the Council also acting by unanimity, but through a simple procedure, to switch to a qualified majority in the Council. As a follow up to the Conference on the Future of Europe the Council has started discussing the possible use of passerelle clauses to switch to qualified majority. The Czech Presidency has notably initiated exploratory discussions on this issue, focusing on the common foreign and security policy.  I look very much forward to hearing your views. I will have to leave the room for a short while as I have a duty to sign several legislative acts together with President Metsola. But my colleagues will be here and report to me afterwards. My personal and friendly advice to honourable Members would be to, instead of attacking the Council as the institution, rather focus the energy on reaching out towards national parliaments, as these are the bodies that national governments are accountable to.