{"id":513301,"date":"2025-10-20T02:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/513301\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T02:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:22:10","slug":"new-eu-members-could-join-without-full-voting-rights-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/513301\/","title":{"rendered":"New EU members could join without full voting rights \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The EU has made enlargement a strategic priority amid Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s expansionist agenda, although the push to increase the number of members from the current 27 to as many as 30 over the next decade is exposing the bloc\u2019s internal divisions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFuture members should be required to waive their right of veto until key institutional reforms \u2014 such as the introduction of qualified majority voting in most policy areas \u2014 have been implemented,\u201d said Anton Hofreiter, chair of the German Bundestag\u2019s European Affairs Committee. \u201cEnlargement must not be slowed down by individual EU member states blocking reforms.\u201d   <\/p>\n<p>The initiative would allow countries currently on the path to membership, such as Ukraine, Moldova and Montenegro, to enjoy many of the benefits of EU membership but without veto rights \u2015 something that EU governments have always cherished as the ultimate tool to prevent EU policies they don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n<p>The thinking behind the proposal \u2014 which is being informally discussed among EU countries and the Commission,<strong> <\/strong>according to the same diplomats and officials \u2014 is that bringing in new countries without veto rights, at least at the beginning of their membership, would allow them to join on more flexible terms without requiring an overhaul of the EU\u2019s basic treaties, seen by several governments as a non-starter.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, EU leaders had insisted that such an overhaul was needed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/germany-scholz-say-eu-reform-admit-ukraine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">before the bloc could admit new members like Ukraine<\/a>, highlighting the risk of increasing deadlocks in Brussels. However, attempts to abolish the veto power for the EU\u2019s existing members as well have run into staunch opposition, not only from Hungary but also France and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n<p>Growing frustration<\/p>\n<p>The plan for new members to join without full voting rights would \u201censure that we remain capable of acting even in an enlarged EU,\u201d Hofreiter said. \u201cFrom discussions with representatives of the Western Balkan states, I am receiving clear signals that this approach is considered constructive and viable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The EU has made enlargement a strategic priority amid Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s expansionist agenda, although the push&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[10541,7907,6560,1194,13490,33,6561,2000,299,36,1945,2190,36152,51099,60437,13491,25482,809,10545,48,332,811,6567,167578,3053,657,15,1220,1781],"class_list":{"0":"post-513301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-albania","9":"tag-austria","10":"tag-balkans","11":"tag-budget","12":"tag-croatia","13":"tag-elections","14":"tag-enlargement","15":"tag-eu","16":"tag-europe","17":"tag-france","18":"tag-friedrich-merz","19":"tag-hungary","20":"tag-kosovo","21":"tag-maia-sandu","22":"tag-marta-kos","23":"tag-moldova","24":"tag-montenegro","25":"tag-negotiations","26":"tag-north-macedonia","27":"tag-rights","28":"tag-russia","29":"tag-security","30":"tag-serbia","31":"tag-taras-kachka","32":"tag-the-netherlands","33":"tag-ukraine","34":"tag-united-kingdom","35":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","36":"tag-viktor-orban"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115404114763785448","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}