European commission president Ursula von der Leyen has backed the idea of reforming European Union treaties to abandon the need for unanimous votes from member states on certain major issues.
EU Commission President Von der Leyen, along with French President Emmanuel Macron, has expressed a desire for sweeping reforms to the European Union’s system of treaties that could allow the bloc to dispense with the need for all states to approve of some decisions. The unanimity feature is a safeguard built into European treaties to protect Europe’s smaller members from being steamrollered by the larger nations in major EU decisions.
A total of 13 member states, including Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Finland have all expressed their opposition to such changes, calling the notion “reckless and premature,” Belgian newspaper La Libre reports.
“This would entail a serious risk of drawing political energy away from the important tasks of finding solutions to the questions which our citizens expect answers,” the countries said.
“We must constantly improve the functioning of our democracy,” Ms von der Leyen argued on Monday and said that to reform the EU she was willing to change the treaties of the union to allow some issues, such as the proposed embargo on Russian oil, to be solved without the need for all member states to agree.
“We need to go even further. For example, I have always argued that unanimity voting in some key areas no longer makes sense, if we want to move faster. Europe should also play a greater role in health or defence,” President von der Leyen stated on Twitter Monday.
The changes, which have been championed by President Macron, as France holds the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union, are part of 300 suggestions by the Conference on the Future of Europe, which was presented on Monday during a conference in Strasbourg.
“We need to reform our texts — it’s obvious,” President Macron said during the conference and argued that Ukrainian membership in the EU should take years, rather than decades.
For years President Macron has pushed for more centralisation of power in the European Union and has also been an advocate for a European Union army.
The German leftist government that took power last year under chancellor Olaf Scholz has also expressed an interest in supporting Macron’s ambitions to strengthen the power of the EU.
“Our French friends can count on our support from the first to the last day to lay the right foundations within the EU: for a sustainable economic recovery, in the fight against the climate crisis, in digitization and for a more sovereign Europe in the world,” German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock stated in December.