Short-cut to a new Europe

Why are revisions needed?

The treaties of the European Union have not been revised since the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. Since then, the EU has faced some serious challenges: the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit, the migration crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. These challenges have shown that the EU needs to reform to improve its functioning in order to tackle future issues more efficiently.

Prepare for EU enlargement

Another reason for the EU to make reforms is enlargement. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the accession of Ukraine as well as the Western Balkan countries and Moldova and Georgia are back on the agenda priorities of the EU. In total, there are currently nine EU candidates: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye, and Ukraine. Enlarging the EU to potentially 36 member states will make it harder to make decisions unanimously. One country’s veto could essentially stall decisive and timely action.

The problem of unanimity

Unanimity motivates the EU to achieve a wide consensus between European leaders in the European Council and between ministers in the Council of the European Union. However, it restricts the power of the EU against its opponents, best exemplified by Viktor Orbán. The Hungarian Prime Minister has used the possibility of a veto in a wide range of policy areas, which usually happens to keep his ties close to autocratic allies. Most notably, he severely prolonged a decision on a €50-billion aid package for Ukraine. His role as a ‘black sheep’ has been stabilized in European decision-making.

Qualified Majority Voting as a possible solution

One possible solution is altering unanimous voting to qualified majority voting (QMV). This system is already in place for many policy areas, but not for issues regarding foreign policies. With this, the EU and its member states could nullify Orbán’s outsized power in the block. The debate is heated, member states are stuck between stopping Orbán and legitimizing a possible German-French hegemony in the European Union. Changing the Lisbon Treaty would nip the specter of gridlock in the bud, making decision-making faster. Being insufficient is one of the main criticisms of the EU, and this could be made invalid with QMV, meaning the acceptance of the proposal by 55% of EU countries, representing 65% of the EU’s population. In this case, the blocking minority would require at least four countries of the Council. Thus, loners like Viktor Orbán could no longer stop other EU countries from an agreement. QMV makes the EU undoubtedly more efficient and speeds up decision-making. However, institutionalizing such changed rules requires acceptance by all member states, which in today’s Europe is hard to imagine.

Member states divided

Within the EU, there is strong division between member states supporting and opposing treaty reform. While the European Parliament supports the idea of treaty change, member states are divided. Many Northern, Central, and Eastern European member states, representing only a relatively smaller population size of the union, are against treaty reform. In May of 2022, 13 EU member states; Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden signed a non-paper stating they are against the “launch of a process for treaty change”.

The Member states who are most in favor of treaty change are Germany and France. Their ministers of state for Europe, Laurence Boone and Anna Lührmann presented proposals for EU reform in a Franco-German report on EU ’institutional reforms’. Some of these reforms proposed by their report would require treaty changes. Following the non-paper of the reluctant member states, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain published a separate non-paper in which they stated that they are “open to necessary treaty changes that are jointly defined” (non-paper, 2022).

What do the European Political groups think?

The European Political groups of the European Parliament most in favor of treaty change are 1) the European Greens, 2) the Socialists and Democrats, and 3) Renew Europe, the liberal political group. With considerable gains by conservative and right-oriented parties in the newly elected European Parliament, a majority that supports a change of the treaties might, however, be less prominent.

What are the EU treaties?

The treaties, specifically the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, are at the heart of the EU’s institutional structure, providing a legal framework that outlines the structures, policies, and functions of the entity. There are two built-in ways to change the existing system: 1) by the ordinary procedure, and 2) by the simplified procedure.

Ordinary Revision procedure

The ordinary revision procedure addresses significant changes to the EU treaties, such as expanding or reducing the EU’s legal authority. The procedure operates as follows:

Simplified procedure

The simplified procedure only allows for amendments to be made through an unanimous decision of the European Council, without the need for a convention or intergovernmental conference. However, the simplified procedure cannot be used to draw up a completely new treaty. This procedure has streamlined the process of making treaty amendments while still respecting each member-state’s sovereignity. It is important to note that national approval in each member state is still required for changes made under this process.

Reform in the existing framework

Some member states, as well as the European Commission, believe that there are ways outside of these two procedures to reform the European Union, within the already existing structures. They believe that for some changes, the treaties can remain unchanged and that mechanisms such as passerelle clauses can work as bypasses for treaty change. These passerelle clauses can modify decision making from unanimity to qualified majority voting in certain areas without changing the treaty framework.

Over the past thirteen years, possible treaty changes have not developed into anything more than reflections. Due to the number of institutional constraints, the variety of actors and their different agendas, agreeing on a common change is an incredibly difficult task. The most important body for any possible change is undoubtedly the European Council. Here, the heads of state and government of the 27 member states need to be fully committed to the new treaty, which seems very unlikely at the moment. Still, one thing is certain: even if all parties support change, it will take several years to develop and implement the respective updates.