BRUSSELS ― Europe’s mounting foreign policy failures, from struggling to fund Ukraine to its fragmented response to the Iran war, are fueling calls for a root-and-branch overhaul of how the bloc conducts diplomacy.
The EU’s inability to take unified decisions — such as unblocking a €90 billion loan for Kyiv, imposing sanctions on violent West Bank settlers and implementing measures targeting Russia — exposes a systemic paralysis, nine EU diplomats, officials, lawmakers and experts told POLITICO.
At stake is more than internal process: With conflict escalating in the Middle East, Russia’s war in Ukraine grinding on and transatlantic relations under strain, diplomats say the EU risks sidelining itself at a moment when geopolitical decisions are moving faster than its system can handle.
Frustration at the deadlock is spilling into the open, with a growing group of countries led by Germany and Sweden pushing to severely limit — or totally scrap — national vetoes that allow a single capital to block action.
“We should abolish the unanimity principle in the EU in foreign and security policy before the end of the current legislative period so as to be better capable of acting internationally and to be truly grown-up,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Saturday, according to the German Funke Group. “All the experience that we have gained over recent weeks with aid for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia indicate this.”
Last month, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that discussions about using qualified majority voting to make foreign policy decisions would “come up again” among leaders.
The push comes as Hungary — less than a week out from its April 12 election — has repeatedly stalled major decisions, including the €90 billion loan to Kyiv, heightening concerns in other capitals that EU foreign policy outcomes can be held hostage to domestic politics. Even if Prime Minister Viktor Orbán were to lose power, diplomats warn the underlying problem would remain, with unanimity allowing any government to step into the same blocking role.
“There are serious problems in how we take decisions,” Spanish Socialist lawmaker Nacho Sánchez Amor, who sits on the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee told POLITICO. “Every month there’s a new issue that highlights this trend. We have to react.”
Another group — including France, Belgium and smaller member countries, which fear being steamrolled — are digging in to defend the veto right, arguing it is core to their national interest.
“Launching a debate now on European unanimity rules, I think, would be the shortest way to get it in real trouble,” Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever told reporters in Brussels last month.
Hundred flowers bloom
One point commands near-universal agreement across European capitals: The system is not working.
“Look at the sanctions on the West Bank settlers — it’s a total disaster,” said a senior EU official with knowledge of the issue, referring to widely supported plans to impose sanctions against extremist Israeli settlers, but blocked by Hungary. “We have 26 countries out of 27 in support, even Germany is in favor, but we cannot do anything because of one.”
Like others in this article, the official was granted anonymity to speak freely because the discussions are confidential.
Recent institutional tensions have reinforced the sense of drift. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas have clashed over who should take the lead on foreign policy, while French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot warned the Commission chief to respect the limits of her role during a gathering of EU ambassadors last month.
But diplomats and officials say such turf battles are a symptom, not a cause.
“Everyone understands that the EEAS [European External Action Service] is not working as it should,” said a second EU diplomat from a country that wants to keep the veto. “There is a debate going on now because everyone agrees the system is not optimal … but foreign policy remains a national competence and we should not move to qualified majority voting.”
Behind the scenes, discussions are already underway. “Informal, high-level” exchanges are taking place between big member countries are exploring possible fixes, including giving foreign policy greater prominence in ambassador-level Coreper meetings and reforming the EEAS to improve decision-making, the diplomat said.
But “we don’t have the answers yet,” the diplomat acknowledged.
It’s the veto, stupid
For many, the real problem is unanimity.
A third senior EU diplomat pointed to a telling episode from 2022, when Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó took part in meetings of the EU’s Energy Council, where decisions can be taken by qualified majority.
“He was being Szijjártó … lashing out in all directions,” the diplomat said. But unlike in foreign policy, Budapest could be outvoted. “He was shocked. He thought he was still in the FAC,” the Foreign Affairs Council, the diplomat added. “In September [when the Energy Councils resumed] he was suddenly Mr. Charming Nice Minister.”
With French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz still at odds on the issue, think tanks and political parties are moving to shape the debate.
The center-right European People’s Party has put forward proposals to reshape the EU’s foreign policy architecture, calling in its 2024 manifesto for replacing the EU’s foreign policy chief with an “EU foreign minister, as vice-president of the European Commission,” and for establishing a Security Council that would also include partners such as the U.K., Norway and Iceland.
Folding the EEAS into the Commission
Carnegie Endowment senior fellow Stefan Lehne has argued for similar structural changes, including folding the EEAS back into the Commission and creating a European Security Council to respond more quickly to emerging threats, including drones and missiles from Iran.
“The fact that our foreign policy structures are dysfunctional is understood by many people,” Lehne told POLITICO. “Foreign policy and security challenges are totally different from what they used to be. And to have no innovation in this area is strange to say the least.”
The idea of integrating the EEAS into the Commission has some backing “namely in the cabinet of the president of the Commission,” he added.
Not everyone is convinced.
“I think the Commission would very much like that,” said a fourth EU diplomat of folding the EEAS into the EU executive, while a senior EEAS official dismissed the idea more bluntly: “Well, people write papers — that’s their right.”
For Sánchez Amor, the problem is less about structures than political will.
“We should use the fact that there are so many problems in decision making to think seriously about this: Let’s gather the Council, the Parliament, the Commission and the high representative to talk about this,” he said, while cautioning against treaty change.
Others argue the diagnosis is simpler.
“The basic problem has not changed, the basic problem of foreign policy is unanimity,” said the third senior EU diplomat. “You can create 1,000 institutions. As long as you have unanimity, it can never work properly.”
