14
Dec
2022
Watch
Defending the European Union against the abuse of national vetoes (debate)
Mr President, Commissioner Gentiloni, there will come a day when the European Union will dare once and for all to make a more perfect union as we Europeans dream, and when national vetoes will be an antique and a relic of the past. Unanimity can make sense for constitutional issues and for the enlargement of the European Union itself. But experience clearly shows that national vetoes have become a brake, an obstacle, if not a possibility for a single Member State to exercise rights without obligations. And the right is to prevent the European Union's decision-making and legislative machinery from functioning. And therefore prevent the European Union from being able to respond. Blocking, jamming in a dizzying time that demands responses as fast as effective. Is it permissible to maintain the veto in own resources indefinitely? On the big financial issues? In the Multiannual Financial Framework? Is it permissible for the veto to be exercised in order to prevent access to free movement and the Schengen area for two Member States by a single Member State of the European Union? The answer is simply no. And that is why it is urgent to review the veto rule, which in experience means that the European Union can remain like a giant, not slow-moving, but frozen in time, when everyone around it is demanding answers so that the European Union can prove its will to be, yes, a more perfect union. I hope our eyes see it. And what I am sure of is that many of the hearts throbbing in this European Parliament will be happy about it.