How Polish history shows the folly of the EU veto system

The Liberum Veto, giving each noble the power to veto any Polish law, allowed foreign powers to divide and conquer the commonwealth. Sound familiar?

In Brussels, journalists have become used to a familiar pattern over the past months. We’re now regularly called to the EU Council to report on whether a Hungarian veto can be overcome. The European Council summits of 27 national leaders have become the Viktor Orban show. Foreign Affairs Councils of the 27 FMs have become the (Hungarian Foreign Minister) Péter Szijjártó show. Whenever there is a proposed action against Russia or for Ukraine, Hungary holds out its veto power until it extracts sufficient concessions, such as the €10 million in withheld rule-of-law conditionality funding it was awarded in December in exchange for Orban dropping his veto against starting EU accession talks with Ukraine. At NATO, too, we still don’t know what exactly Orban was given by Sweden in exchange for dropping his veto on accession.

But it’s not only Hungary who abuses the Council’s unanimity system. In 2020 Cyprus blocked sanctions against Belarus because of an unrelated dispute with Turkey. Poland has vetoed climate legislation (and may yet be able to kill the new carbon border levy if they can prove it’s a tax). The Netherlands is still vetoing Bulgaria and Romania joining Schengen. And France, famously, wields its veto threat to keep the European Parliament doing its monthly travelling circus to Strasbourg. The recently-convened Conference on the Future of Europe has called to end the Council’s unanimity requirements, something in theory backed by France and Germany. But the EU’s North and East is resisting an end to the national veto ability. The issue has divided the EU in two. Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain all want to replace the Council’s remaining unanimity requirements with qualified majority votes. On the other side are the ‘friends of unanimity’ such as Poland, Hungary, Sweden, the Baltics, Denmark, Bulgaria and Croatia, some of whom have penned a letter opposing scrapping the veto rule.