BRUSSELS BEHIND THE SCENES
Weekly analysis with Sam Morgan
Germany wants the EU to reform so that it can accept new members and this week suggested some interesting and logical changes that should be considered. You can bet the house that none of the most effective improvements will be made.
The EU could probably absorb a couple of new members without having to make too many changes to how its internal machinery runs the club. It worked as a Union of 28 countries, it would work well enough with, say, 30.
But there are eight candidate countries and there might soon be more. Expanding to include all of them or even some of them is simply not feasible, especially when we are talking about huge countries like Ukraine and – although at this stage completely unlikely – Türkiye.
So Brussels must change how it does business. That obviously means the existing members all agreeing on how they should change. There is a snowball’s chance in Hell of that happening.
BRUSSELS BEHIND THE SCENES includes weekly analysis not found anywhere else, as Sam Morgan helps you make sense of what is happening in Brussels. If you want to receive Brussels Behind the Scenes straight to your inbox every week, subscribe to the newsletter here.
This week, Germany laid out a wishlist of reforms that the EU should undertake in order to get ready to accept new members to the Union.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock detailed some absolutely legitimate and logical reforms that should be made, while also correctly saying that there is an appetite for EU enlargement that has simply not been on the agenda since Croatia joined in 2013.
After all, the European Commission will publish its enlargement progress report next week and Ursula von der Leyen is in Ukraine today ahead of that stocktake. A decision on starting membership talks is possible by the end of the year.
The Bundesrepublik’s reform list insists that the Commission and Parliament “cannot be simply allowed to grow and grow”. More MEPs means more boring speeches, I suppose, and we can all do without that.
To be fair to the Parliament, if it were left up to the EUs assembly to reform itself, there are decent chances that its lawmakers would agree on some sort of cap on numbers and new criteria on how to divide seats between countries. Maybe.
The make-up of the Commission is trickier though, as smaller member states will worry that they will be sidelined when jobs are on the line. Baerbock did say that Germany would be willing to “do without our own commissioner for a limited period of time”.
But whether that would pan out that way is doubtful. How would it work? Groups of countries on a rotating basis? How long would a Commissioner have to do their job? An entire 5-year mandate? This will probably get bogged down in the details and never happen.
Maybe Germany could show it is entirely serious about the idea by relinquishing its right to a Commissioner for the next five years…
Vetoing vetoes
More controversial still is the idea of scrapping vetoes in certain areas. Hungary, as just an example, has wielded its vote over common foreign policy decisions, defence spending and many other areas, undermining EU efforts across the board.
There is no way that any bad-faith government or smaller country is going to vote to reduce the amount of influence it holds in a Union of 27 (or more) members. Zero chance.
EU legal heads are going to have to get creative and find a way to do it by the backdoor or an immense concession will have to be made elsewhere in order to get the Council to agree to it. The quid pro quo would have to be unprecedented to pull it off.
The maximum that we can expect at the moment is the removal of vetoes from other policy areas. Perhaps those climate and environment decisions that are still governed by unanimity. That could be too much of a stretch as well.
Germany’s proposals are not all completely unfeasible, as another idea to allow leaders of candidate countries to attend European Council meetings does have merit to it.
It kind of happens already. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is no stranger to Council summits and other heads of state of government are regular guests at either informal summits or meetings dedicated to issues like enlargement.
Obviously there are security concerns. Would Serbia’s president really be invited to a meeting that includes talks about Russia sanctions or similar? Unikely.
But there would certainly be a lot of value in inviting environment ministers, for example, to council summits. Even just as observers, both to get used to the format and to perhaps accelerate the reform process.
Initiatives like Erasmus, free roaming, interrail tickets and more – the really visible stuff that is the first thing you think of when someone asks ‘what has the EU ever done for me?’ – should also be opened up.
‘How to pay for it’ should be a secondary issue. There will obviously be a way to pay for it, billions of euros get thrown around every day in grants, loans and transfers, so finding a couple of hundred million to allow North Macedonian students to take part in student exchanges is simply a no-brainer.
That kind of soft power is so valuable and so underappreciated, it sometimes boggles the mind. Especially since doing the big reforms (eventually) becomes so much easier in the long-run as a result.
Germany will not get its way on the really difficult stuff. There is not enough political clout or appetite in Europe to pull it off and national interests are just too powerful right now. So focus on the smaller stuff.
It will be worth it.
BRUSSELS BEHIND THE SCENES includes weekly analysis not found anywhere else, as Sam Morgan helps you make sense of what is happening in Brussels. If you want to receive Brussels Behind the Scenes straight to your inbox every week, subscribe to the newsletter here.
