The Council meets in 10 different configurations, depending on the topic of discussion. Find out more about Council configurations. The presidency of the Council rotates among the EU member states every six months, according to a pre-determined schedule.
The Republic of Croatia will hold the presidency from 1 January to 30 June The European Council defines the EU's overall political direction and priorities and it's members are are the heads of state or government of the member states. Member-states will also lose their veto over the appointment of the two most senior bureaucrats in the Council of Ministers and over some external EU representatives.
The treaty extends qualified majority voting to almost all issues concerning trade in services and intellectual property. But it exempts cultural, audiovisual, social, education and public health services. From , rules governing structural funds will be subject to qualified majority voting, along with other forms of cohesion funding.
Member-states would also lose their national veto over changes to the accounting system for the EU budget. Decisions on asylum, visas and immigration would no longer be taken unanimously. Ireland and the UK are not subject to common EU rules on asylum and immigration but they may opt in to the EU system if they wish.
The treaty's critics argue that extending qualified majority voting weakens the control national governments exert over the EU. But the strategy is now threatened by bilateral disputes and skepticism about enlargement within the EU member states. To jump-start enlargement, the EU must change its procedure and allow qualified majority voting in all intermediary stages of EU accession. Under current rules, EU member states must unanimously agree to allow candidate countries to progress at each stage of accession.
This means that one state can block the accession of another even if the candidate state is fully qualified. The three-decade long stand-off between Greece and what is now the Republic of North Macedonia is a case in point.
The recent resolution of this dispute provides a positive impetus for the rest of the Balkans, but the list of other bilateral disputes in the region that threaten to block countries on their way to EU membership remains long. But French President Emmanuel Macron insisted that the EU should reform itself before opening its doors to new members. Member-states should use QMV in deciding how to implement common strategies. Beyond making use of the enabling clauses, QMV should be applied to sanctions, but not to human rights positions or civilian CSDP missions.
Only sanctions promise to gain in effectiveness from QMV, and the legal case is also relatively straightforward. Since sanctions already require Council decisions that are legally binding, majority voting can be readily introduced. But for sanctions policy under QMV to work, the EU must address the existing weak enforcement mechanisms, which would be compounded if states were outvoted and thus had greater incentives not to comply with collective decisions.
Member-state law enforcement agencies, not EU bodies, currently monitor and enforce sanctions, and information is only inadequately shared across the union. Member-states should therefore explore several options to strengthen monitoring and enforcement of sanctions. It may therefore be preferable to extend the competences of existing institutions, such as the European Banking Authority. To ensure due process, the EU should also consider creating the position of an Ombudsperson to review the listing of targeted sanctions.
Under unanimity requirements, the veto of each individual government legitimises CFSP decisions. If they could now be outvoted, the democratic legitimacy of CFSP would be undermined, unless it were compensated for by elevating the role of the European Parliament which is the norm for other realms where QMV applies.
But this poses a problem in itself: one of the motivations of the proposed reform is to increase the speed of decision-making, which would be made more difficult if the European Parliament had co-decision powers. Instead, the European Parliament could be granted greater post factum competences as possessed by national parliamentary committees, such as the House of Common Foreign Affairs Select Committee to inquire into the implementation of a sanctions regime and make recommendations on future policy.
Such a step would avoid paralysing decision-making, while increasing its democratic accountability. For a start, external events can shift red lines. The euro crisis, for instance, was a catalyst for member-states to move beyond established rules and institutions so as to respond to an economic emergency.
In the current geopolitical climate, the possibility of yet another crisis that causes member-states to rethink their positions on QMV is probable. But waiting for a crisis to spur integration is not particularly advisable. There are other steps that should be taken. The big member-states must try to assuage the concerns of smaller members that QMV is merely an instrument to impose their will.
In all policy realms, not just CFSP, France and Germany must make greater efforts to consult and incorporate the views of smaller member-states, who fear that with the departure of the UK they have lost an important ally in balancing against Paris and Berlin.
Germany, in particular, has not been practising what it preaches. To prepare the ground for the extension of QMV, Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, has made the compelling proposal that the German government should in the meantime announce that it would unilaterally relinquish its veto in the Council if it found itself isolated in opposition to the other member-states.
Only when Germany and France genuinely demonstrate that they seek common EU positions will they be able to convince smaller member-states of the virtue of extending QMV. The EU also needs to offer alternative sources of financing to cash-strapped member-states. The emphasis on fiscal consolidation within the eurozone over the recent decade has led to chronic underinvestment in infrastructure.
The bailout programmes for Greece and Portugal also included demands to privatise public assets to bring down headline debt figures, even though such a course of action does not reduce public net debt, which should be the real concern.
Where Europe retreats out of an unjustified fear of public debt, China steps in: China, for instance, bought a 51 per cent stake in the Greek port of Piraeus and is currently in negotiations to further increase its 23 per cent stake in the Portuguese electricity operator Energias de Portugal. If the EU wants to create greater cohesion, it should revise the fiscal rules to encourage, not inhibit, investment.
The current framework incentivises even pro-European governments to break ranks to attract essential investment. But the recently agreed investment screening regulation is about information sharing; it stops short of delegating the power to the Commission to stop foreign direct investment, which will limit its effectiveness.
To protect its interests in the world, the EU must become a stronger foreign policy actor. In the face of external pressures emanating from Russia, China, but also the US, as well as internal divisions, extending QMV and using existing possibilities promises to be one step in the right direction.
QMV incentivises unity when differences in national interests are small and would act as a firewall shielding the EU from the divide-and-rule tactics of third parties. Sanctions, in particular, could become an even more important foreign policy tool if they were no longer to be decided by unanimity.
Common strategies should also be revamped and implemented by QMV. Overcoming the opposition of several member-states will not be easy and requires honest reflection in Berlin and Paris. But ultimately, extending QMV is not a chimera but a plausible reform, at least in the medium term. In his considerations on the government in Poland, Jean-Jacques Rousseau describes how the individual veto of each deputy in the Polish-Lithuanian diet Sejm turned from a guarantor of freedom to a source of impotence.
Surrounded by menacing neighbours and vulnerable to their bribery, the Sejm was paralysed for large parts of the 17th and 18th century and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth eventually collapsed in the face of external aggression in European policy-makers should take note. This policy brief benefited from the invaluable input of my fellow colleagues at the CER as well as external discussants. I am particularly grateful to Sven Biscop, Geoffrey Edwards, and the participants of a workshop on the subject of this brief kindly hosted by the Egmont Institute in Brussels in April View press release.
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Search form Search. Hot topics Pandemic recovery. The geopolitical EU. Legitimacy concerns Opposition from member-states Recommendations Conclusion.
Policy brief. Leonard Schuette Twitter. Download PDF. Public opinion across the continent is in favour of a stronger common foreign policy.
Divisions within the EU, however, often prevent effective common action, as foreign policy decisions usually require unanimity. Divisions may stem from different analyses of the problem, conflicting national interests or member-states acting at the behest of, or under pressure from, external powers. For a vote to pass under QMV, it requires 55 per cent of member-states representing at least 65 per cent of the total EU population to be in favour of a proposal in the Council.
The Commission argues that these reforms would not require changes to the EU treaties.
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