Is the EU’s own veto right a leverage tool? Ask the Euronews AI chatbot

Published on 30/03/2026 - 7:30 GMT+2

The veto powerfulness allows subordinate states to artifact and hold actions successful the European Council. What was erstwhile considered a safeguard of nationalist sovereignty, is present turning into a unit maneuver to extort concessions from Brussels.

According to Michal Ovádek, lecturer successful European Institutions, Politics and Policy astatine University College London, 48 vetoes person been registered since 2011. Hungary has halted 21 decisions. Poland ranks 2nd with 7 vetoes, followed by Slovakia, the Netherlands, Austria, and Greece. Other EU members including Cyprus, Romania, and Bulgaria person utilized it astatine slightest once.

While unanimity is simply a antiauthoritarian requirement, critics pass that repeated veto tin pb to Europe’s paralysis.

As the EU is facing planetary challenges, swift decisions are required. Internal unanimity disputes undermine Europe’s credibility and corporate enactment carrying terrible geopolitical costs.

This has sparked renewed debates implicit reforms successful Brussels. Replacing unanimity with qualified bulk tin beryllium 1 solution. Other imaginable options see adopting ineligible counteractions and governmental compromises, specified arsenic tighter conditional backing mechanisms.

Reforming voting rules remains hard arsenic immoderate alteration requires unanimity, with countries refusing to springiness up this right.

Curious astir the implications of the EU’s unanimity rule? Ask the Euronews AI chatbot!