(Photo by European Parliament via Flickr/CC BY 2.0 DEED)
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On 31 March 2024, Romania and Bulgaria will partially accede to the Schengen Area, the European Union (EU)’s open-borders area. Although their partial accession to Schengen may seem like a victory for the two countries, this has been a long time coming.
January 2024 marked 17 years after these two nations first joined the EU. It took longer for Romania and Bulgaria to further integrate into the EU due to one key EU member state: Austria. Despite all other EU member states voting in favour of Romania and Bulgaria joining Schengen, Austria, along with the Netherlands, vetoed their accession in 2022 due to concerns over illegal immigration — or rather, domestic political pressure making the government want to look like it is tough on illegal immigration. Austria’s self-interest again took priority in 2023 when it finally allowed the two nations to join Schengen, but only via air and sea travel. Thirteen years of negotiations later, there is still no concrete timeline for these two countries to integrate further into the EU despite meeting “all Schengen requirements.”
Unfortunately, this is not the only example of a small handful of EU members holding back progress on important issues. For instance, Bulgaria and France stalled the commencement of accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania for over a decade, driven by their own interests in the region. This occurred despite the majority of EU member states, the European Commission, and the European Parliament advocating for the initiation of accession talks for both countries.
It Takes Just One Country to Hold Europe Hostage
While most EU decisions do not require unanimity, some major decisions necessitate unanimous agreement from all member states. In particular, the European Council — a council of all government leaders from the 27 EU countries — requires 100% agreement on objectives like passing the EU budget, foreign policy issues, and expanding the bloc or any of its parts. Examples include the Schengen Area and the EU’s common currency, the Euro.
Therefore, any singular member can indefinitely block major EU decisions. While vetoes may allow individual states to express their concerns on important issues, they also enable EU countries to exert leverage over the entire bloc to advance their geopolitical interests. This misuse of veto power was evident in Hungary’s repeated vetoing and reduction of EU funding for Ukraine, driven by Budapest’s close relations with Russia.
Vetoes from EU countries can cause serious delays in crucial processes. One example is North Macedonia, a Balkan country that has been stuck in EU application limbo for nearly two decades. Initially, Greece demanded the country change its name from Macedonia to North Macedonia to reflect the region of Macedonia in Greece. After reaching an agreement in 2019 and Greece lifting its veto, Bulgaria then imposed its own veto on commencing negotiations with North Macedonia. Bulgaria demanded changes to North Macedonia’s constitution to address a series of Bulgarian concerns. Until 2022, the issue was unresolved, forcing North Macedonia to wait nearly 20 years to start negotiating its EU membership. Today, the country is still nowhere close to joining the bloc.
Unlimited veto power also causes economic harm to both EU members and applicants. EU membership opens many doors for countries, granting all EU citizens the right to work and reside in other member states while prohibiting trade barriers within the bloc. This economic freedom brings many benefits for existing and newly-joined countries: it increases trade between EU members, bolsters GDP, and leads to higher living standards amongst EU residents.
Being able to join the Schengen Area and the Eurozone further enhances these benefits, as both help dismantle trade barriers — the former through eliminating the need for border controls and checks, and the latter through eliminating the need for currency exchanges. However, due to prolonged delays in their accession processes — stretching nearly two decades and ongoing for North Macedonia, Romania, and Bulgaria — both the applicant countries and the EU as a whole have missed out on the economic advantages that EU membership affords.
EU Reform: What Changes?
To solve this issue and prevent individual EU states from being able to stop the entire bloc’s progress, the EU desperately needs reform. It is not a new idea, and many proposals have been put forward by various parties both within and outside of the EU over the years. Of these, the leading proposal to reform the European Council’s voting system was put forward by members of the European Parliament. This proposal would see unanimous voting replaced with a “qualified majority” system, where a proposal will need approval from countries making up 55% — 15 of 27 — of the EU’s nations and 65% of the EU’s total population. Some major EU countries, like France and Germany, have expressed that they support reforming the European Council’s voting system.
Qualified voting has some major advantages. It allows proposals to garner majority support in the EU and pass without being obstructed by lone actors who often block these bills to extract concessions — like Hungary in Ukraine funding. Additionally, the qualified majority system ensures that all EU member states, regardless of size, have a voice in the decision-making process. This is achieved by requiring both a majority of countries and a majority of the EU’s population to approve bills. The qualified majority system also has a clause for “reinforced majority,” where 72% of all EU countries representing 65% of its population must approve particularly contentious decisions.
There remain some challenges with implementing voting reforms. The EU already votes with the qualified majority system in many minor areas, except for major decisions such as opening admission talks. To expand the use of qualified majority voting to more issues, the EU would need unanimous consent to activate a “passerelle clause.” It is not unreasonable to expect that countries prone to exercising their veto powers would also veto any attempts to remove their veto powers. Nonetheless, the EU should do everything possible to remove veto powers — for example, give leeway on particularly thorny issues — to safeguard the bloc’s interests.
Unilateral vetoes have caused many issues within the EU. It can make the bloc seem disunited internationally and undermine the EU’s efforts — like providing aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression and in aiding in the post-pandemic economic recovery. It also causes real economic impacts by unnecessarily delaying progress in the EU, often for prolonged periods spanning decades.
The EU should be serious about voting reform and remove unilateral vetoes for good to prevent these downsides. Qualified voting offers the best of both worlds — proposals that have the support of most EU countries will be able to proceed while assuring all countries are still represented and heard. It is time for the EU to choose: do the needs of the bloc overall outweigh the demands of the few?
Edited by Ashley Renz
