European Parliament: Remove the veto in the enlargement process

2024-02-29 15:22:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The European Parliament has approved on Thursday a resolution on the enlargement process of the European Union (EU), through which it requested that this process become more efficient, including removing the use of the veto for member countries.

The resolution also calls for the EU to have a more efficient budget in order to be able to cope with the enlargement with new member states.

The resolution was supported by 305 deputies, while 157 deputies voted against and 71 abstained.

The European Union, currently, for each decision in the field of foreign policy and security, including the enlargement process, must find consensus. This has often led to decisions being blocked by a member state through a veto, even when all others were in favor.

This is the last resolution for the enlargement process that the European Parliament approves in this composition, since the new bloc elections will be held in June.

This institution of the EU has strongly supported the enlargement process, while with this resolution it demands that the EU be reformed before it expands.

The European Parliament also supports the gradual integration of candidate countries into the EU single market throughout the enlargement process, even before they become formal members of the bloc.

"The EU needs a long-term political vision and institutional and financial reforms to ensure capacities for the absorption of new members", says the text of the resolution which was approved by the deputies of the European Parliament on Thursday.

MEPs demand that the preparations for enlargement take place in parallel both in the European Union and in the candidate countries. They also demand stronger protection of the democratic values ??of the European Union and the rule of law.

As for the institutional reforms of the European Union, the resolution requests that those reforms facilitate the process of approval of decisions, remove the approval of decisions by consensus and have more flexible mechanisms. It proposes to use qualified majority voting to improve the balance between the largest member states and the smallest ones.

The European Parliament also requests that the EU institutions begin to address the impact that the admission of new member states will have on the composition of the European Commission and the European Parliament.

Although they demand that the EU set concrete goals for the reforms of the candidate countries, they are against setting deadlines for the membership of any country in the EU./ REL