Von der Leyen seeks to break key EU pillar

Member states should work on economic matters in small groups in the absence of unanimity, the European Commission president has said

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called for a mechanism that would further water down the European Union unanimity requirement – a key pillar underpinning the bloc. She suggested that like-minded member states should be able to work on economic matters in small groups in the absence of EU-wide consent.

In recent months, the EU has already increasingly relied on a clause that allows for decisions to be made with approval from 15 of its 27 member states. The workaround has been used to bypass opposition from some countries on key issues, such as imports of Russian energy and the appropriation of frozen Russian assets. Some nations, including Hungary and Slovakia, have denounced the practice as an unacceptable overreach by Brussels into sovereign matters.

In a letter addressed to EU leaders on Monday, Von der Leyen wrote that “our ambition should always be to reach agreement among all 27 member states,” as quoted by several media outlets.

“However, where a lack of progress or ambition risks undermining Europe’s competitiveness or capacity to act, we should not shy away from using the possibilities foreseen in the treaties on enhanced cooperation,” the commission president reportedly said.

Von der Leyen was referring to an instrument devised in 1997, which allows a minimum of nine member states to team up, circumventing the EU’s unanimity requirement.

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Last September, she similarly said that it was time to “break free from the shackles of unanimity” and move towards qualified majority voting in some areas of foreign policy, including sanctions and military aid.

In January, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas likewise stated that “unanimity means we cannot always act at the speed of relevance.”

The EU leadership’s proposals have caught flak from Slovakia, with Prime Minister Robert Fico predicting that removing the veto would “spell the end of the bloc.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has likewise accused EU officials in Brussels “systematically raping the law”