Insight
Does EU enlargement require voting reform? by Zselyke Csaky and Charles Grant, 9 May 2025 The expansion of the EU to 35+ member-states poses significant challenges to its institutional structure and decision-making processes. Areas requiring unanimity, such as foreign policy and taxation, could well be disrupted by greater use of vetoes or threats of vetoes. Moving away from unanimity to qualified majority voting (QMV) is a potential solution to enhance decision-making efficiency. However, this shift would be complex and faces much resistance, especially from smaller member-states concerned about losing influence. The EU has mechanisms like passerelle clauses and constructive abstention that can facilitate a shift towards QMV without requiring full treaty change. At the same time, these options are limited and often require unanimous agreement for activation. Combining enlargement with ‘differentiated integration’, whereby different membership tiers have different benefits and distinct institutional rules, could make decision-taking smoother. However, it would not fully resolve the problem that enlargement will make decision-making harder, especially in areas such as taxation or the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). EU enlargement is back on the agenda and with that, discussions of what a larger Union would look like are back as well. The EU’s expansion to 35+ member-states would pose challenges to its institutional structure and its decision-making capacities. Six countries are actively engaged in negotiations to join (Albania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine); Bosnia and Herzegovina must meet a number of conditions before negotiations can start; Kosovo is a potential candidate; while the accession processes of Georgia and Türkiye remain frozen for now. While it is still unclear when and how enlargement will take place, it is clear that an influx of new members would shake up the existing institutional set-up. An enlarged EU would face an impaired ability to make decisions quickly and efficiently. This is especially true in areas that currently require the unanimous approval of all member-states. These include the CER INSIGHT: DOES EU ENLARGEMENT REQUIRE VOTING REFORM? 9 May 2025
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