I found this on Reddit and I read the whole thing, I thought it was interesting.
The author argues in favour of greater European independence on defence (and less dependence on the US). The article is a year old but I think it’s still relevant.
The author is apparently a journalist with France 24, a French state-owned media company, so you could say that makes him biased in favour of the French position. But I think he still makes valid points.
Yeah maybe the veto thing is a bit silly. Maybe these matters could be decided by a majority vote in the EU parliament.
Qualified majority on foreign policy matters by the Council and a simple majority from the parliament. Also the option to defend the EU called out by the Commission to be able to act quickly.
The veto thing is the only way the individual countries can maintain their sovereignty. It’s a union, not federation. There should definitely be mutual cooperation on defence, immigration etc but nobody will agree to cooperation if they are obliged to follow other countries plan. Ireland, for instance is constitutionally neutral. Small countries won’t want to be bullied by larger, so France and Germany combine almost could control everything with simple majorities. Larger countries want the smaller countries to contribute their fair share and not be carried.
There isn’t a binary «veto»/«simple majority». Supermajorities exist, and the Council already has rules like double-majorities to preserver a smaller country’s voice. Vetoes only work for small groups, and cause gridlock in all other cases.
That’s why article 42 is worded that way. Ireland (and Austria) not being able to contribute directly doesn’t mean that the 25 other countries can’t act.
I get that, which is why my response pointed out that it’s not as simple as a majority of a veto, but that France/Germany combined has a large population bloc that means without them, it’s very unlikely to happen.
Each countries sovereignty remaining is part of the EUs strength, but also it’s weakness. Things like immigration are a trans continent problem and variations in policy, numbers of immigrants and refugees is problematic, even with Schengen. Cross border policies while retaining sovereignty are very difficult. Complex, and difficult to gain consensus.
The opacity of all this, with much of the EU business less visible than national governments, means there is less political capital to make things happen quicker when needed.
Maybe it should be a federation… although that obviously won’t be realistic for years to come. And France and Germany alone are a way off from a majority if you have a representative parliament… France and Germany together is about 150 million people, but there are around 450 million people in the EU.
I don’t think most EU countries want to be a federation at this point. Close ties, yes, but not loss of sovereignty.
For a simple majority, they can’t enact things on their own. However they can hold up a qualified majority with just a few smaller states due to their size. The EU is about broad consensus which is why it moves slowly for anything regarding sovereignty, which includes immigration and defence.
Yeah fair enough. I wonder what will happen in the future. Maybe a federation will never happen, who knows.
I think that most western countries are converging on economic, taxation and liberal values that align. As developing countries catch up, to meet entry criteria, I expect it will expand east and south, potentially with some trading partners joining or aligning more closely. As the block gets bigger, it becomes more important to trade with, so it may hit a point where everyone wants in, but has to follow their rules. Or it stagnates and never gets there and dissolves over time, either because it’s no longer needed or it’s not fit for purpose.
I think the next 20 years will be telling, especially what happens to Britain and Ukraine in that time.
Well illiberal leaders have been elected in the US, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, and maybe more will follow… but yeah who knows.
Yes, but even Meloni and Trump are more liberal than their counterparts from previous bouts of fascism.
I wonder if the increasing complexity of our economies and societies is insulating us a little from the worst effects, even if some of that complexity is driving the lurch right for those who are feeling the pain
I suppose that complexity involves international ties, and some voters realise that their jobs are dependent on internationalism, so they don’t want to vote for right-wing isolationism. But some people are happy to vote for isolationism anyway, because they want to reduce immigration in many cases. Who knows what the future holds, but I guess we now have four years of Trump leading the free world to find out.
Germany and France combined have about a third of the EUs population. Also the EU parliament is made up of different parties from the individual countries. Those parties disagree on a lot of things.
Yes, and there are loose coalitions between those disparate parties. Usually 65% of the EU population needs to be represented by how it works. A majority of states with a majority of people voting for something to pass. So France and Germany can hold things up with just a few smaller states. As it happens, France and Germany are more inclined to want to advance the EU rules rather than hold them up, but their combined size gives them an oversized power, which is not necessarily a bad thing given how many people they represent.
Greece was frustrated by Germany when they had to practice austerity. Germany often pushes for financial rules that are beneficial to their export economy.
I think the veto thing is absolutely necessary. The most important functions (defence when attacked, disaster relief) should be triggered automatically without political involvement should they ever become relevant; anything extra beyond core functions should be high hanging. If not we’ll have a European desert storm before we know it.
I have come to think that the only thing that is going to save Europe is how much we struggle to agree on anything. That’s a good thing in times when majorities are untrustworthy.
Majorities might produce bad decisions sometimes but the alternative is that you have leaders making decisions that the majority of people don’t like… which is arguably worse.
As for the veto, I wonder if the EU will dislike that sort of thing in the future, especially if greater EU co-operation is seen as necessary in order to compete with (and defend from) large powers like the US and China. If one country vetoes something that the majority of Europeans want, is that good? Maybe not.
Yeah, for sure it depends on the situation. But for military cooperation I think it might be good not to be too trigger happy.
No doubt for other things we need to be able to decide things without Hungary.
True. I guess maybe for some actions, a two-thirds majority of votes could be required. I dunno.
Which goes back to the point about France and Germany being able to control the momentum with a third of the population.
With a mathematically representative EU parliament then France and Germany shouldn’t be able to control anything by themselves because like you say, their combined population is less than half of the EU