More EU Decisions by qualified majority voting - but how? Legal and political options for extending qualified majority voting

Julina Mintel and Nicolai von Ondarza

No 61/2022, SWP Comments from Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Abstract: In the debate on how to strengthen the European Union's (EU) capacity to act, calls for an extension of qualified majority voting (QMV) are growing louder. The Council of the EU is currently discussing using the so-called passerelle clauses in the Treaty on European Union (TEU). With these clauses, more decisions by QMV could be introduced without a major treaty change or a convention. However, abolishing national vetoes in this way would first require unanimity as well as, in some cases, additional national approval procedures. Such unanimity is currently not in sight, as resistance is prevailing in smaller and medium-sized member states, which fear that they could be regularly outvoted. What is needed, therefore, is an institutional reform package in which decisions by QMV are extended with the aim of facilitating further enlargement of the EU and are accompanied by emergency clauses to protect core national interests.

Keywords: EU decisions; qualified majority voting (QMV); passerelle clause; Treaty on European Union (TEU); EU Commission; Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-law and nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:swpcom:612022

DOI: 10.18449/2022C61

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