What are your priorities for the future of Europe?
#MakeItYours A space for participants in the EU Discussion Tables
Supports are subject to the following rules:
- You can support up to 3 proposals.
- Hungary and Poland: we must find a way for the European Council to avoid being blocked by the unanimity play, propose treaty reform to revise the voting process. Cancelling the unanimity rule might be an option.
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21 comments
Conversation with PRE2319HUA
The legal basis for the existence of the EU is the TEU and the TFEU, which are binding on both the Commission and the Council.
No sanctions are possible in cooperation between equal partners. Disagreements must be settled by negotiation. The primary guarantee of EU democracy is the Council's unanimity rule. It cannot be changed without amending the treaties. Abolishing it would turn the EU into an empire. Empires can only be held together by military force. Military force is always the answer to the use of military force.
I think that the principle of unanimity must be maintained, BUT an organization must be found to prevent a minority from blocking the choices of the majority of the members. This is a matter of the most elementary common sense!
Sorry to disagree. No state structure (and the EU is one) can operate indefinitely on the basis of unanimity. There are always majorities and these are more demanding the more nuclear the issue at hand. How would Germany operate if any measure required unanimity of its states? Unanimity can work in small municipalities and confederal models (the EU is a kind of confederal structure), but sooner or later the confederal model has to be defined towards greater integration or greater autonomy.
Agreed, especially if we think about further enlargement of the EU. Unanimity in case of more than 30 states is aburd.
NO!
Conversation with Jack Armstrong
I note the name of this platform is Renew EU. Member states aonnot cherry pick the bits they like of this union. Rule of law should be non negotiable. Poland and Hungary have politicised their courts and media. This is how you build empires, dictatorial ones. I look forward to their elections and hope Poles and Hungarians realise they are dangerously close to becoming rogue states and vote for democracy and rule of law independent from politics
Jeck Armstrong. Come to Hungary. Take a look around. Believe your eyes, not the press. Hungary's rule of law is not perfect, but Hungary is the most law-abiding country in Europe. Don't believe me, come here!
I have no doubt that as long as law enforcement and compliance with the law in Hungary is at a high level, that is great. The question may be, what are these laws that are being upheld and are being enacted? Because if we're talking about "banning" LGBT propaganda in schools and the like, that doesn't seem so great to me anymore, if it's being followed. (Note: LGBT propaganda doesn't exist) Just like restricting journalists' freedom.
So if laws are passed that are in violation of fundamental rights, the argument about their enforceability and application is irrelevant. The EU must stand on clear rules, fundamental rights that no country can arbitrarily adapt.
Thank you. Finally a decent answer. So it's about LGBT propaganda and not really about LGBT existence, I'm just wondering if LGBT propaganda is a fundamental right? Is Christian education a fundamental right? Is the right of parents to have custody of their children a fundamental right? And most importantly, who decides what is a fundamental right. The people who tell us? We have a democratic process. There is no one to decide for us, so it will be a referendum, we will decide.
Maybe! But then act to bring your government into line (e.g. through negotiation) with the decisions of the majority.
Yes, I agree. After the majority decision. We are waiting for the majority decision, we are waiting for the referendum decisions of the other Member States, so that we can finally know the opinion of the majority.
The unanimity rule is the only safeguard for the smaller weaker less economically developed countries to ensure that nothing bad happens to them and to resist the already most powerful core states.
The EU is far from being a community of values, it is an alliance of interests.
It works as long as it is a win-win situation.
You can see this perfectly well if you tear down the veil and look underneath.
In Hungary everything is left the way it is because the German government, for example, has a greater interest in running its factories on the cheap than anything else.
If western Europe takes on the financial and all kinds of burdens of bringing the eastern-southern member states up to their own standards of living in the short term (not in 100 years time) then I might be in favour
Without that, however, it is a joke.
Conversation with PRE1831ESX
Hungary and Poland are renewing Europe; several of the protest movements and demonstrations of the last two years are based on their resistance to the impositions of a hierarchy of officials who are not judged despite receiving subsidies from companies and foundations alien to the interests of Europe.
Are you suggesting that EU officials receive "subsidies from companies and foundations outside the interests of Europe? Where do you draw such conclusions? A civil servant does not receive subsidies (neither in the EU nor the Member States) Do you mean bribes, perhaps? I would appreciate if you could develop your argument further.
EU civil servants are like civil servants in any administration: it would be good not to use them as an external enemy.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2016-006610_ES.html
Conversation with Jack Armstrong
Since resuming the premiership a decade ago (his first stint was from 1998 to 2002), Orbán has overseen the steady dismantling of the country’s democratic institutions, eroding its press freedoms, undermining its education system, and limiting the power of its judiciary. As an open advocate of “illiberal democracy”—his country is the first and only EU member state to be considered just “partly free” by the think tank Freedom House—Orbán has never tried to sugarcoat his autocratic aims, and has justified them by invoking national sovereignty and national security. wake up Hungary.
Come to Hungary. Your outburst is the brainchild of the left-wing press. Don't take my word for it that not a word of it is true. Come and see!
Conversation with PRE1492ROX
The unanimity rule was put in place for a specific purpose to prevent blocs of Member States from imposing a regional agenda on the majority of Member States. Dispensing with unanimity for certain policy issues in key areas should be replaced by qualified majority voting, but a complete repeal of unanimity is an undesirable idea.
And how can you decide which question is key? Unanimously. :)
A 60 or 70 percent majority would be appropriate and avoid certain blocs voting together.
A qualified majority of the kind that exists in the European Council might be more appropriate than unanimity.
Unanimity gives excessive power to small countries and their politicians, it stimulates all kinds of separatist regions and their politicians to participate in that power.
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