EU foreign policy paralysis fuels push to scrap national vetoes

The European Union's foreign policy machinery has seized up. In recent weeks a single capital, Budapest, has held up a €90 billion loan package for Ukraine and vetoed sanctions against violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, measures backed by the other 26 member states, including Germany. The paralysis is not new, but its frequency and visibility have turned a long-standing procedural grievance into an open political crisis. Nine diplomats, officials, lawmakers and experts describe a system that cannot match the tempo of war in Ukraine, escalation in the Middle East, or the unpredictability of transatlantic relations.

The paralysis exposed: Ukraine loan and West Bank sanctions

The €90 billion loan for Kyiv, agreed in principle at G7 level, has been stuck in the European Council because Hungary refuses to release the proceeds of frozen Russian assets that would backstop the financing. At the same time, a widely supported sanctions regime targeting extremist settlers in the West Bank has been blocked by the same veto. A senior EU official, speaking anonymously because the discussions are confidential, called it a "total disaster": "We have 26 countries out of 27 in support, even Germany is in favor, but we cannot do anything because of one." The official added that the deadlock repeats itself month after month, each episode reinforcing the sense that the EU is sidelining itself while geopolitical decisions accelerate.

The loan and the sanctions are only the most visible symptoms. Sanctions packages against Russia have been watered down or delayed. The EU's response to the Iran-Israel confrontation has been fragmented. In each case the unanimity rule, the requirement that all 27 governments agree, has given a single government effective control over the collective position. For the bloc's largest economies, that is no longer tolerable.

Germany and Sweden lead the push for qualified majority voting

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul put the demand bluntly in an interview with the Funke media group: "We should abolish the unanimity principle in the EU in foreign and security policy before the end of the current legislative period so as to be better capable of acting internationally and to be truly grown-up." He cited the experience of recent weeks, aid for Ukraine, sanctions on Russia, as proof that the current system fails. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson echoed the sentiment, telling reporters that discussions about qualified majority voting (QMV) in foreign policy would "come up again" among leaders. Both governments argue that the EU cannot claim strategic autonomy while its decisions are hostage to national vetoes.

The push is not limited to capitals. In the European Parliament, Spanish Socialist Nacho Sánchez Amor, who sits on the foreign affairs committee, said: "Every month there's a new issue that highlights this trend. We have to react." He favours convening the Council, Parliament, Commission and the High Representative to discuss reform, though he cautions against treaty change. The centre-right European People's Party has gone further, proposing in its 2024 manifesto to replace the High Representative with an "EU foreign minister, as vice-president of the European Commission" and to establish a Security Council that would include the United Kingdom, Norway and Iceland.

The Hungarian factor: domestic politics blocking EU action

Hungary's role has concentrated minds. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, facing a general election on 12 April, has used the veto repeatedly. Diplomats note that even if Orbán loses power, the structural problem remains: unanimity allows any future government to step into the same blocking role. A third senior EU diplomat recalled a revealing episode from 2022. When Hungary's Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó attended meetings of the Energy Council, where decisions are taken by qualified majority, he was "lashing out in all directions." But Budapest could be outvoted. "He was shocked. He thought he was still in the FAC," the Foreign Affairs Council, the diplomat said. "In September [when the Energy Councils resumed] he was suddenly Mr. Charming Nice Minister." The anecdote illustrates how QMV changes behaviour: the threat of being overruled forces compromise.

That dynamic is precisely what the veto's defenders fear. For smaller member states, the veto is the only guarantee that their interests cannot be steamrolled by the Franco-German engine. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever warned last month: "Launching a debate now on European unanimity rules, I think, would be the shortest way to get it in real trouble." France shares that instinct. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot used a gathering of EU ambassadors to tell Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to respect the limits of her role, a reminder that Paris guards the intergovernmental character of foreign policy jealously.

Defending the veto: France, Belgium and smaller states resist

The resistance is not merely procedural. It reflects a genuine divergence of strategic culture. France sees itself as a global power with a permanent UN Security Council seat and nuclear deterrent; it does not want its freedom of action constrained by a qualified majority that could be assembled by others. Smaller states, particularly in central and eastern Europe, worry that QMV would let the largest countries impose positions on Russia, China or the Middle East that they disagree with. A second EU diplomat from a country that wants to keep the veto put it plainly: "Everyone understands that the EEAS [European External Action Service] is not working as it should… but foreign policy remains a national competence and we should not move to qualified majority voting."

That diplomat acknowledged that "informal, high-level" exchanges between big member states are already exploring fixes: giving foreign policy greater prominence in ambassador-level Coreper meetings, reforming the EEAS to improve decision-making. But, the diplomat added, "we don't have the answers yet." The admission captures the mood: everyone agrees the system is broken; no one agrees on the repair.

Institutional turf wars: Commission vs EEAS vs High Representative

The friction between von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas, the High Representative, is a symptom of the deeper dysfunction. The Commission President wants the executive to drive geopolitical strategy; the High Representative, a former Estonian prime minister, guards the intergovernmental mandate given by the Council. Barrot's public rebuke of von der Leyen was a signal that France will not accept a commission-led foreign policy. Meanwhile, the EEAS, created in 2011 to give the EU a diplomatic corps, is widely seen as under-resourced, slow and torn between serving the High Representative and the member states.

Stefan Lehne, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that the EEAS should be folded back into the Commission and a European Security Council created to respond to threats such as drones and missiles from Iran. "The fact that our foreign policy structures are dysfunctional is understood by many people," Lehne said. "Foreign policy and security challenges are totally different from what they used to be. And to have no innovation in this area is strange to say the least." He notes that the idea of integrating the EEAS into the Commission has backing "namely in the cabinet of the president of the Commission." A fourth EU diplomat confirmed: "I think the Commission would very much like that." A senior EEAS official dismissed the idea more bluntly: "Well, people write papers, that's their right."

Structural proposals: foreign minister, security council, folding EEAS

The EPP's proposal for an EU foreign minister who is also a Commission vice-president would merge the external representation role with the executive's policy tools. Adding the UK, Norway and Iceland to a European Security Council would acknowledge that the EU cannot handle European security alone, a recognition driven by the war in Ukraine and doubts about US reliability. Lehne's version goes further: a standing security council with military and intelligence capabilities, able to act within hours rather than weeks. None of these ideas can advance without treaty change, which requires unanimity, the very rule the reformers want to abolish.

Sánchez Amor argues the problem is political will, not architecture. "We should use the fact that there are so many problems in decision making to think seriously about this: Let's gather the Council, the Parliament, the Commission and the high representative to talk about this," he said. But he cautions against treaty change, knowing the ratification minefield. The third senior EU diplomat cut to the core: "The basic problem has not changed, the basic problem of foreign policy is unanimity… You can create 1,000 institutions. As long as you have unanimity, it can never work properly."