European Commission prepares major change to EU voting rules – media

The European Commission is preparing a reform of the EU’s decision-making mechanism, which should reduce dependence on the veto of individual member states. According to media reports, the changes could concern both the enlargement process and sanctions, defense and security.

The Rapporteur writes about this with reference to internal draft documents of the European Union’s enlargement strategy.

According to the publication, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is to present a plan to prepare the EU for enlargement to more than 30 member states. It is proposed not to make changes directly to the Lisbon Treaty.

One of the proposed mechanisms involves the use of transitional legal provisions to waive the unanimity requirement at a number of intermediate stages of accession negotiations for candidate countries.

The European Commission also wants to make wider use of qualified majority voting, according to the Rapporteur. This means the support of at least 15 states representing at least two-thirds of the EU population .

This approach could be extended, in particular, to decisions on sanctions, human rights, defense and security, and the fight against tax evasion.

The proposed changes could potentially speed up accession negotiations for countries whose progress is blocked by a small number of EU states, including Ukraine, Montenegro and North Macedonia.

At the same time, the reform itself will also require unanimous support from member states, so its adoption is not guaranteed.

The European Commission has previously acknowledged that the principle of unanimity in certain areas is becoming an obstacle to effective decision-making in the Union.

On October 6, the European Commission is expected to present an assessment of how the future enlargement will affect key EU policies and what internal changes the Union will need to make to accept the new states.

Recall, earlier “Pryamiy” wrote that the EU is preparing roadmaps for the accession of Ukraine, Moldova, Montenegro and Albania . For each country, they plan to determine specific steps and approximate deadlines for completing key stages of negotiations.

In addition, on September 29, “Pryamiy” reported that the EU is again trying to agree on negotiation clusters for Ukraine . Previously, their progress was blocked by Hungary.

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