European Commission President Urzula von der Leiena announced on Monday that the EU treaties needed to be changed and the principle of unanimity abolished.
Ronalds Viteks / PAP / EPA
Poland and 12 other EU countries have opposed “ill-considered and premature attempts to start the process of changing the EU treaty,” the non-paper said.
Apart from Poland, the document was signed by Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden.
“While we do not rule out any possibility at this stage, we do not support ill-considered and premature attempts to embark on a process of treaty change,” writes 13 EU countries.
In their view, efforts in this direction “link the serious risks of energy recovery” to the country’s priorities and the “urgent geopolitical challenges facing Europe”.
Representatives from 13 countries said the EU “could fulfill the existing treaty framework”, as evidenced by Europe’s response to recent crises, such as the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Europe is already working for us,” they said, adding that there was no need for rapid institutional reform.
The non-paper was distributed on the day the European Parliament hosted the closing ceremony of a conference on the future of Europe in Strasbourg, a debate between hundreds of EU citizens on how the bloc could best respond to public expectations.
The report’s proposals cover nine topics: climate change and the environment, the economy, migration, the digital transformation, democracy, education, values and the rule of law, health and the EU’s place in the world.
The report also calls on the European Union to abolish the principle of consensus in European Union decisions that currently exist in the areas of foreign and security policy, the European Union’s tax and financial affairs and certain areas of justice, home affairs, social security and defense.
European Commission President Urzula von der Leiena announced on Monday that the EU treaties needed to be changed and the principle of unanimity abolished. “Unanimity in some key areas simply doesn’t make sense if we want us to move faster,” she said.
–
