EU Parliament draws up plan for countries to overcome unanimity

The EU Parliament passed a report on Tuesday giving pragmatic recommendations on how to implement the passerelle clauses, a treaty mechanism allowing the EU Council to shift from unanimity to qualified majority voting (QMV), in hopes of pushing countries to overcome unanimity in key areas – for over the 40th time.

The non-binding report, seeing passerelle clauses “as an important tool to improve the EU’s ability to act rapidly and effectively”, gives recommendations on what policy areas would be applied to and a specific calendar detailing when to roll them out.

Before the end of 2023, the Parliament calls countries to use passerelle clauses and QMV on sanctions, fiscal measures on energy policy, environmental measures, and the ongoing mid-term revision of the EU’s budget 2021-27.

Decisions about the EU’s positions on multilateral forums and the conclusion of international agreements in foreign and defence policy remain areas where the EU Council would use QMV by the end of 2024, whereas decisions on social policy, anti-discrimination measures, all foreign policy decisions except military operations, and on the Union’s democratic processes would be taken using QMV “as soon as possible in the next legislative term”- after EU elections in June 2024.

QMV on fiscal policy and the approval of the next EU budget in 2027 were voted out during plenary.

“By presenting some concrete and pragmatic proposals as to how and when to overcome unanimity, we hope that the Report can become a concrete contribution to the discussions in the Council and help to finally, yet gradually, overcome unanimity”, S&D’s MEP Giuliano Pisapia (S&D), the file’s rapporteur, told EURACTIV.

The text “is only the latest of over 40 resolutions that have been approved in the past two legislatures calling to overcome unanimity”, he added.

Discussion grows slowly

The problem remains that passerelle clauses require unanimity to be activated, which is highly unlikely to happen given some member states’ usage of the veto as leverage for negotiations.

For example, in 2022, Hungary in Poland vetoed the minimum corporate tax rate recommended by the OECD to put pressure on the European Commission’s disbursement of COVID-19 recovery funds.

“I’m not holding my breath that an EP [European Parliament] report will have a decisive impact on reluctant member states”, an EU diplomat told EURACTIV.

However, some countries such as Spain, currently brokering agreements among member states as it holds the EU Council presidency, are hopeful of the – slow- developments that current discussions on QMV may bring.

Spanish Secretary of State for the EU Pascual Navarro expressed during Monday’s Council meeting the country’s “firm intention to work on QMV”, a second diplomat said, adding that “any document that supports that idea will be useful for the discussion”.

Even though acknowledging that “it is unlikely that Member States will agree overnight to overcome unanimity in all fields” and that the shift to QMV will be slow, MEP Pisapia says that there has been a growing discussion about it since the Conference on the Future of Europe, which is gaining momentum now due to the blockage of some countries of key foreign policy decisions amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.

For example, in May 2022, nine member states launched a “Group of Friends” on Qualified Majority Voting in EU Common Foreign and Security policy.

“These are first steps that show that the Council is seriously reflecting on how to improve EU decision-making”, he said, adding that “the Report approved by Parliament intends to contribute to this dialogue”.

As member states inch closer to discussing how to best prepare the EU for a potential enlargement, the debate on unanimity will also further as “these discussions will certainly include the question of governance, including consensus and QMV-decisions”, the first diplomat added.

(Max Griera | EURACTIV.com)