Alex Tokarev | Georgi Harizanov
August 11, 2026
Before Europe became a collection of nation-states, it was a civilization bound together by scholars, shared learning, and the pursuit of truth. As our capacity to communicate has expanded beyond imagination, the intellectual culture that sustained that world has steadily eroded.
The demand to move to qualified majority voting (QMV) in foreign policy has grown steadily louder in Brussels. For years, the European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen has been pushing to cast off the “shackles of unanimity,” and after Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary’s April elections, it called for “seizing the moment” to break the veto in the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Since April, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has been advocating the abolition of unanimity by the end of the current legislative term and has put forward a six-point plan for reforming the EU’s institutions.
Practice shows just how far this goal is from being realized. On 23 July, only on its third attempt after objections from at least six member states—including Bulgaria, Greece, and Austria— did the Council of the EU manage to agree on the 21st package of sanctions against Russia. Germany’s position on Israel exposed the same tension from another direction. At the European Council in June 2026, Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated that his government had rejected proposed EU trade measures against Israel. The institutional significance lies in Berlin’s insistence that Germany must retain control over how that responsibility is translated into foreign policy—even while its own foreign minister advocates limiting national vetoes in security matters. The gap between the rhetoric of abandoning the veto and the readiness of states to use it when their own interests are at stake is structural.
An explanation for this state of affairs was offered 60 years ago by Stanley Hoffmann. Against the functionalist “logic of integration,” he set the enduring “logic of diversity” of nation-states. The distinction between “low” and “high” politics allows us to understand why supranational integration has developed successfully in the economy, trade, and regulation, yet it has not led to the formation of a common foreign policy.
“Low politics” covers questions of welfare: trade regimes, tariffs, competition, technical standards, market regulation, agriculture, and particular strands of social and economic policy. In these areas, quantitative assessment, mutual concessions, and package compromises are possible. States can delegate powers without relinquishing political autonomy.
Ernst B. Haas, widely regarded as the founder of neofunctionalism, gave the theory its classic formulation in The Uniting of Europe, published in 1958. Cooperation in one sphere was supposed to create a need for integration in adjacent fields. A common market demands uniform competition rules and standards, and the interdependencies that arise lead to further transfers of authority. It was assumed that economic integration would be followed by a shift in political loyalties, and that it would gradually grow into political integration.
Hoffmann argued that this logic operates only as long as integration does not encroach on “high politics”: foreign-policy orientation, defence, security, the use of force, relations with great powers, and a country’s place in the international system. Here, what is at stake are questions of political survival, status, and the autonomy of the state. The transition from a common market to a common foreign policy is therefore not a natural continuation of integration. Handing another centre the right to determine allies, threats, the permissibility of using force, and the price of risk touches the very foundation of sovereignty.
Economic interdependence does not erase differences in foreign policy interests. These are shaped by what Hoffmann called the “national situation”: geographical position, historical experience, economic structure, military capabilities, external commitments, collective memory, and elite conceptions of the country’s role. One and the same problem may be an immediate threat for one state, a distant risk for another, and an economic opportunity for a third.
The EU’s inability to forge a common position cannot therefore be explained solely by imperfect procedures or a lack of political will. Unanimity is a consequence of the fact that states are not prepared to hand EU institutions the final say on foreign policy matters. In economics, the losing party can accept a majority decision as temporarily unfavourable. In foreign policy, it may view it as a threat to its own security.
A fully-fledged supranational foreign policy is also impeded by the absence of a single European political community capable of legitimising its costs. European societies may support diplomatic coordination, sanctions, or defence procurement, but that does not mean they are ready to perceive threats in the same way, to bear losses, or to redistribute resources for a common goal.
As a result, the spillover halts at the boundary of high politics. The closer supranational institutions come to security and the use of force, the more fiercely states reclaim control at the intergovernmental level. Cooperation is possible, but only where national assessments of threats, costs, and desired outcomes coincide. The EU’s institutions can give shape to that convergence, but they cannot create it.
The struggle over voting procedures has accompanied European integration since the very first Communities were created. Jean Monnet regarded unanimity as one of the reasons for the weakness of international organisations, which is why the Treaty of Rome provided for the gradual extension of qualified majority voting. States, however, accepted it only on issues where defeat did not threaten fundamental national interests.
The first major collision was the ‘empty chair’ crisis of 1965–1966. France refused to take part in the work of the Council, opposing the shift to majority voting and the strengthening of supranational institutions. The resulting Luxembourg Compromise was less a definitive constitutional settlement than an agreement to disagree. All six member states accepted that, where very important national interests were at stake, negotiations should continue in an effort to reach a solution acceptable to all. France maintained that discussions should continue until unanimous agreement was secured, while the other five governments did not accept that this position could override the Treaty’s provisions on majority voting. Formally, therefore, qualified-majority voting remained available. In political practice, however, the compromise created a powerful presumption in favour of consensus, and, for nearly two decades, the Council generally avoided putting sensitive matters to a vote.
The extension of QMV resumed with the creation of the Single Market. Measures to remove trade and technical barriers were transferred to majority voting, but the veto was retained in sensitive areas. During the negotiations on the Treaty of Nice, almost every state demanded carve-outs for its own interests: the United Kingdom in social and tax policy, France in health and cultural services, Germany in immigration, Spain in budgetary and regional policy, other countries in transport and taxation. QMV was extended above all to questions that states did not regard as fundamental.
In foreign policy, this distinction operated from the very start. Trade policy gradually passed into the Community’s purview, but diplomacy, security, and international orientation remained with national governments. European Political Cooperation, established in 1970, functioned outside the Community system and was built on information exchange and consultations. It made it possible to formalise an already existing consensus but did not provide the means to overcome differences through majority voting.
The EEC states coordinated positions on the Middle East, East–West relations, Southern Africa, the Iran–Iraq war, and Central America. In 1980, they jointly supported the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. But a common position would emerge only after the differences had been resolved.
Proposals to change this model were rejected. The Tindemans Report of 1975 suggested creating a single centre for economic and political decisions and extending QMV, yet its institutional recommendations were shelved. The Single European Act linked foreign policy cooperation with the Community’s institutions without altering the intergovernmental method of decision-making.
The Maastricht Treaty entrenched this distinction within the structure of the European Union. The first pillar saw a continuing expansion of Community competences and majority voting, while the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was placed in the second, intergovernmental pillar and constructed on unanimity. States agreed to coordinate foreign policy but did not hand supranational institutions the right to determine its substance in the absence of a general consensus. The Amsterdam and Nice Treaties refined the CFSP mechanisms but did not alter the fundamental decision-making procedure. When the EU Constitution was being prepared, extending majority voting was again put forward, but the intergovernmental conference retained unanimity in foreign and defence policy.
The Lisbon Treaty eliminated the pillar structure, created the European External Action Service, and strengthened the High Representative. Decisions, however, remained with the member states. The reforms enhanced the EU’s ability to pursue a coherent line but did not grant the institutions the right to shape that line against the opposition of a single member. The institutional evolution of the CFSP has made coordination more sophisticated, but it has not overturned the intergovernmental character of high politics.
Article 24 of the TEU retained unanimity as the general rule for the CFSP, while Article 31 allowed QMV only in limited cases. Member states generally continue to seek consensus, even where majority voting is formally available. The veto is preserved when it comes to choosing relations with third countries, imposing new sanctions regimes, and decisions with military or defence implications. What is handed to majority voting is technical execution, not strategic choice.
Constructive abstention allows a state not to obstruct a common position while assuming no obligations to implement it. In February 2022, Austria, Ireland, and Malta permitted the financing of lethal weapon supplies to Ukraine in this way, while preserving the limits imposed by their neutrality. The passerelle clause allows individual issues to be shifted to QMV but requires unanimity in the European Council and does not cover military and defence decisions. From 2009 to 2026, it was never used.
The veto has been employed as a means of protecting fundamental interests. Between 2016 and 2022, around 30 instances of a veto, the threat of one, or a blocking delay were recorded; 18 involved Hungary. But other countries have blocked decisions, too. Cyprus delayed sanctions against Belarus in 2020 while seeking parallel EU action against Turkey, and Poland has on several occasions threatened or employed its veto to secure concessions in other areas. Greece had earlier obstructed Macedonia’s Euro-Atlantic integration over the country’s name, a dispute largely resolved by the 2018 Prespa Agreement. The principal obstacle to North Macedonia’s subsequent progress towards EU membership came instead from Bulgaria, which blocked the opening of accession negotiations over questions of language, history, and minority rights.
In 2023–2024, the camp of QMV advocates grew stronger. In December 2023, Viktor Orbán allowed the opening of Ukraine’s accession talks by leaving the European Council meeting but blocked €50 billion in aid to Kyiv. The veto was lifted in February 2024 after pressure from other states. By then, nine EU members had formed the ‘Group of Friends of QMV in CFSP,’ and a Franco-German expert group (the ‘Group of Twelve’), at the initiative of the French and German governments, published the report “Sailing on High Seas: Reforming and Enlarging the EU for the 21st Century,” which became the intellectual manifesto of the reformist camp. The experts proposed extending majority voting ahead of the next stage of the Union’s enlargement.
Subsequent events showed that the problem is not reducible to Hungary. In September 2025, von der Leyen again called for freeing the EU from the “shackles of unanimity,” and António Costa suggested moving specific clusters of decisions to QMV. As early as October, the Netherlands, France, Greece, and Denmark came out against a partial abandonment of unanimity. Even governments that support deeper integration were not prepared to divest themselves in advance of the ability to block decisions whose substance cannot be foreseen.
In January 2026, Kaja Kallas once more raised the question of abandoning unanimity in security policy. In February, Hungary and Slovakia blocked the 20th package of sanctions against Russia because of the halting of oil supplies via the Druzhba pipeline. For the majority, sanctions were an instrument of pressure; for Budapest and Bratislava, they touched on energy supply, industry, and domestic political stability.
Orbán’s defeat in April did not eliminate the blockages. Von der Leyen called for using the change of power to remove “systemic blockages,” but a few days later, a new sanctions package was blocked by Slovakia. Robert Fico called abolishing the veto “the beginning of the end of the EU.” The package was adopted only after additional talks on 23 April. A change of government in one country did not erase the national interests of another.
The contradiction was thrown into especially sharp relief by Germany’s policy on Israel. In 2025, Berlin did not support a review of the EU–Israel Association Agreement and, together with Italy, blocked restrictions on Israel’s participation in the Horizon Europe programme. In April 2026, Germany and Italy prevented a full suspension of the Association Agreement.
Just a few weeks later, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul declared that unanimity in security matters could expose Europe to “existential danger.” Yet, in July, Berlin again blocked restrictive measures against Israel. Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg proposed suspending trade preferences and argued that the decision could be taken by qualified majority. This interpretation was backed by the Council’s legal service. Germany nonetheless demanded unanimity and prevented a vote. This episode is highly revealing.
The CFSP should not be viewed as an unfinished common foreign policy that, after the next reform, will become the equivalent of the EU’s common trade or competition policy. Its limitations are not a temporary anomaly. They reflect the contradiction between the supranational organisation of the European economy and the persistently national organisation of political power, security, and strategic responsibility.
There is no single political community in the European Union capable of legitimising the costs of a common foreign policy in the eyes of the member states’ citizens. The German voter is under no obligation to regard a majority decision on Israel as more legitimate than the position of his own government. The Slovak voter may view anti-Russian sanctions not as an expression of a common European good, but as a threat to his country’s energy security. Such differences could be overcome only if there were a common perception of threats, a shared historical memory, and a consensus on acceptable costs. Between states with differing national situations, that unity does not exist.
The CFSP is therefore not a proto-federal foreign policy but a mechanism for coordinating national strategies. Its effectiveness depends on a coincidence of interests, not on the voting procedure. The demand to move to QMV is aimed at the symptom—the unanimity rule—but does not eliminate the cause: the divergence of national situations and the absence of a single political community.
Relinquishing unanimity in the realm of high politics was impossible at earlier stages of integration and remains impossible today. States are prepared to hand technical and executive matters to majority voting, but not the right to determine their allies, threats, foreign policy orientation, or the acceptable price of risk. Abolishing the veto will not create a common strategic interest where none exists. It will merely allow the majority to impose on individual countries decisions that those countries may regard as a threat to their own security.
That is precisely why the veto power must be preserved. It is not a procedural flaw or a relic of early integration. It is a guarantee that questions of war and peace, security and international orientation will not be handed over to the discretion of a majority of states or supranational institutions. Unanimity marks the real limit of European integration and enables states to cooperate in foreign policy without relinquishing sovereign control over high politics.
