According to Margarita Šešelgytė, Director of the Institute of International Relations and Political Sciences of the Vilnius University, the demand for unanimity prevails in the fields of defense, security, and taxes, which often contributes to the disintegration of the Community.
“This creates conditions where states that want to gain more for themselves can veto issues and block the entire decision-making process. If it is a matter of great importance, other states may concede to that country in other areas. Not wanting to damage their reputation and relations with other states, countries rarely resist, these are extremely exceptional cases.
However, players like Hungary and its leader Viktor Orbán do not shy away from using it and using it often. The options for limiting destructive games in the Community are limited, but they do exist. Under the EU treaty, there is a possibility to restrict actions if it is against EU values. The EU can then make a decision without such a country or even punish that country in some way, for example by applying economic sanctions. The EU avoids doing this, because in general it is a union, if you eliminate one member, it becomes undemocratic. However, if the number of veto ideas increases, they will paralyze the decision-making process, and the strictest measures will be taken,” said M. Šešelgytė in the program “Can the European Union do it?” on “Žiniai Radio”.
According to the former European Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, the departure of the Community can be caused not only by unanimity, but by the qualified majority mechanism.
“The European Council has decided that member countries vote behind closed doors, most people do not even know how the ministers of their countries voted, only after the decision is made it is announced that this is the Council’s decision. This allows a great deal of cover-up for the ministers and governments of the member countries. Decisions like this, when homework is not done, lead to the creation of blocking coalitions to keep the issue off the agenda. So, not only unanimity, but also the qualified majority mechanism allows to delay, block, postpone the process for a long time, it has happened many times.
There are mechanisms in the Treaty of Lisbon, but it can honestly be said that in 2002-2003, when the European Convention was creating a new treaty for a Constitution for Europe, and then the Treaty of Lisbon was born out of its non-ratification, no one thought that a situation would arise where a few countries would maliciously use the blocking on those issues , which are the most important. Of course, the most important issue is the multiannual financial perspective and budgetary matters, which affect all countries. The second issue is foreign policy, security, defense, I’m not talking about migration, which is also very, very important,” said V. Andriukaitis.
According to the interlocutor, it has been considered for some time what to do with those who do not want to solve common issues, but start thinking selfishly, thinking about their own interests, not the interests of the Community.
“Perhaps it is necessary to harmonize the mechanisms of budget financing with certain budgetary sanctions, but to talk about it, you need to rely on the amendments of the Lisbon Treaty. The 27 states are very divided, so talk of strengthening the EU’s accession mechanisms by strengthening the treaty clauses has been taken off the agenda, despite the fact that last year the EP spoke and voted in November for the possibility of such a prospect that the European Crossroads should be discussed and what can be done to make Europeans believe that solutions are coming much faster, that there is no selfish blocking.
Now is the time of elections, there are a lot of different moods, which is why these issues have been removed from the agenda. Both the European Council and the Council of Europe are trying not to react to the resolution adopted by the European Parliament, which is largely silently supported by the European Commission. And in the Councils, everyone is now afraid of how many and what people will be elected. Different countries have very different sentiments. There is a lot of rhetoric, and that the Union needs to be weakened, so the next European Parliament can be very difficult,” said the former European Commissioner, emphasizing that egoistic thinking prevails in some countries, not paying attention to the concerns of neighboring countries.
After talking about unity for a long time, it seems that the EU is increasingly talking about differences. However, according to M. Šešelgytė, those big differences have always existed, North versus South countries, Old Europe versus New Europe, interests and threat assessments have always differed greatly.
“Perhaps the EU’s ambitions are greater now, the hope is to deepen integration in certain countries, and this causes different approaches. The environment we live in is also very complex. Not only the war in Ukraine, but also the Middle East and the China issue. These are also not issues on which EU countries have a unified opinion, especially their societies. There is issue polarization in all democracies, more or less.
Polarization happens for various reasons, but a big trigger is social networks, which add more fuel to the fire and encourage different bubbles and their formation. Through all the assembled pieces of the puzzle and adding migration, we see the picture of populist radical movements emerging in the states, which may not have one or the other opinion about the EU, but go in the opposite direction and try to speak contrary to the established narrative of the elite, decision makers, and when which are perhaps encouraged by external forces that are interested in weakening the EU”, stressed M. Šešelgytė.
Although, according to her, the danger may become apparent during the European Parliament elections, in the expert’s opinion, it is important to understand that the House of Parliament is not the most important component of the EU.
“The main institution is the Council, which is led by the representatives of the member states, if we do not see a radical change here, it will dilute any other radical concentration in other institutions. There is also a Commission, where European bureaucrats work, who take part in expert examinations and provide decisions. Finally, the European Parliament itself. Although we can see an increase in the number of populist forces, such trends are not so clearly observed in all states, radicals will not be elected in all states,” said the political scientist.
Until now, in the context of the divisions of the Community, the history of the United Kingdom is mentioned as one of the most dramatic issues. According to V. Andriukaitis, the example of Nigel Farage and Brexit was a huge crisis. According to the politician, for this reason even now it is very important to talk to people, to recognize that there are many challenges and crossroads in the Community, it is necessary to address them.
“The European Citizens’ Forum on the future of the EU advocated the need for revision and changes to the Lisbon Treaty, which would emphasize social Europe and increase the social security standards necessary for people. Many people feel the recent price and financial crisis and its sad consequences. The social dimension is crucial. Its absence encourages people to vote for that British slogan “Take back the powers!”. In Britain, unfortunately, it worked in the opposite direction, it was a huge, painful lesson”, former European Commissioner V. Andriukaitis emphasized in the program “Can the European Union do it?” on “Žiniai Radio”.
