Did the veto only exist in the first place because it was necessary to sell the concept of the EU? Telling governments “don’t worry, you’ll be able to veto anything” sounds like an argument you’d need in order to get skeptical countries to join when the EU was new and untested.
In practice, the veto seems like a terrible idea. Any stubborn, selfish head of state can blackmail the entire EU by threatening to veto an important measure.
Now, the EU has proven itself, plus, member states have seen the perils and costs of leaving. There’s much less need to accommodate those who refuse to act in good faith. Getting rid of the veto is an excellent idea.
I think there’s some confusion about how the “veto” works. The EU uses many ways to reach decisions, and those ways are different depending on the type of topic. Some are decided by majority, some by unanimity.
The topics that require unanimity are the ones that would make no sense otherwise, since the EU doesn’t have the ability to coerce a member state into doing things it doesn’t want to do, beyond withholding funds and other soft measures like that.
This reevaluation will switch some things from the unanimity principle to qualified majority.
It’s important to remember that the EU is a built on the willingness of its members to cooperate and participate. It tries to use the carrot almost exclusively, not the stick. So far this has worked out amazingly well considering the previous century for example. The countries that have joined the EU have cooperated and prospered. The ones that wanted to cooperate without outright joining have been able to do so (Norway, Switzerland, Greenland). The ones that changed their mind could leave (UK). The ones that couldn’t bring themselves to agree with its values have never joined.
Can’t someone veto getting rid of the veto?
The vote passed with a razor-thin majority of 291 votes in favour to 274 against, with 44 abstentions.
That sounds problematic for this making it. This is a treaty revision, so the bar for this going through is unanimity of member states. While technically, having a MEP vote one way doesn’t mean that their state must have the same position, if about half of the EU is opposed, it seems very likely that this is a long way from unanimity of states.
It is also the only way to prevent the EU from collapsing under an almost byzantine but wholly impotent bureaucracy. Even if this causes the usual obstructionists to leave, the better off the union will be. Europe must become a true federal state, instead of institutionalized bickering and infighting.
