Clumsy decision-making and an inability to agree on key issues have made the EU effectively weightless on the global stage, the bloc's former foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has argued.
The former senior diplomat made the comments on Friday in an interview with Belgian broadcaster RTBF, echoing the stance of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The senior official, who has been in power since 2019, has called for the bloc to remove individual member states' veto rights and move to qualified majority voting on foreign policy and defense issues.
The bloc's decision-making process has become inadequate in its ability to react to the ever-changing global situation, Borrell said, arguing that the EU was "not designed for the world we live in today" in the first place.
“The rules of decision-making are not compatible with the acceleration of history. We continue to want to decide unanimously on events that are happening very quickly and that are very important, and we almost never reach an agreement,” he said, adding that the current system makes the bloc "not very weighty in international politics."
Unlike von der Leyen with her majority voting approach, Borrell called for the creation of a new core group within the bloc to advance the EU's positions on the global stage.
“We need to build a union within the union. A union within the union means that with 27 members, even with unanimity, we will not go further. We are constrained. With 27, we will not achieve much. So we need to find another core group. Not the 27,” he said.
The former senior diplomat, however, did not specify the exact criteria for potential members of this group, stating that it should consist of “the few who really want to move forward with political, economic and military integration” and those “who want to go further, faster.”
Last week, the idea of abandoning the EU's unanimity principle was supported by Berlin, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul arguing that switching to qualified majority voting would "enable the EU to act in areas where it currently has to remain in the minority."
The initiative has already been supported by at least 12 EU member states, according to Wadephul.
