A new treaty that reproduces all the currently active EU treaties and exclude a member from signing. In case of dire need, could it be a legal way to start a new EU without said member?
9 comments
I don’t see why not. It would take some time and lots of bureaucracy, and might cause some diplomatic turmoil with the country left out, but legally countries are generally free to draw up new treaties as needed
If if comes to that, there is a less complex option: it’s possible to strip an EU member states of voting rights. It requires that the member state in question systematically violate fundamental EU law, and all others must unanimously agree.
It is, of course, a last resort. It might backfire and damage EU unity rather than foster it. But it is there if really needed.
Won’t that damage the reputation of EU or whatever those countries like to call that new establishment?
The strategy of moving further inward with a small group of EU member states so that the rest may follow at their own pace or choose not to move inward and get left behind has been floated many times before. The whole EU history is one of gradual, step by step development into a big union. But it all started with a small set of countries making first steps.
The main reason it hasn’t happened yet must be that one of the critical big few that need to be in, refused it.
My bet is on Germany being that country. I also think this may just have changed. Merz may understand that to keep AfD and Musk from taking over by next elections, he has to start a power transfer to a new generation, so that the current blocks voting AfD find better alternatives that they feel represented by.
An initiative to boldy move further inward has the potential to rally voters, especially young ones that – regardless of whether they support it now already – are looking for bold moves that address key issues. Especially if the EU faces of that movement are young, as they should be, considering that it is a long journey that will take a long term commitment from its champions.
In theory yes, in practice no.
It would take decades to get all national parliaments to approve all the necessary treaty changes. And even if the deal was agreed that everyone would just join the new union with the exact same conditions as before you can be sure that every politician would have “but just this one exception” negotiation about every single little detail. Consider that every single treaty that makes a country a member of the EU was negotiated by a government that isn’t currently in power (except the treaties that were negotiated in the past couple of years). Which means that they are only honored because there is a tradition that new governments don’t tear up treaties that previous governments signed. Any miniscule movement in the country of contrarians that want to leave the EU would suddenly found themselves flooded with funding by billionaires and hostile states just to try to get one of the countries to not sign the new treaties.
Once you get past that impossible hurdle, there’s a much bigger issue of legal succession. What about the deals and treaties that the EU did with other countries? There are probably tens of thousands of those. Take the problems you’d have with EU members that still want to remain members to not renegotiate previous deals and multiply it by a thousand because you’re dealing with far more negotiations with governments that are potentially hostile now. You also have the problem of assets and institutions that you’d have to transfer to the new union. Every transfer of assets would be questioned in any available court in processes that would drag out for decades.
Yeah, theres literally nothing stopping them lol
One of the most realistic ways might be an opt-in military alliance, that way states that want to get involved, can.
Technically it would be perfectly possible, but politically almost impossible to make happen unless there were some really extreme events in the excluded member.
There are already procedures to exclude but not expel a member so if that were not possible for any reason I doubt the new treaty route would work.
This idea has been floating around under the name of “multi-speed Europe”. And as a Hungarian I totally understand why normal EU countries would go forward with it. Sadly.
The EU needs to change its rules so as the block could be viable to its future. Letting a couple wanna be dictators throwing road blocks every second is not going to solve anything, other than strengthen Putin’s hand!
Say a 3/4ths majority!
9 comments
I don’t see why not. It would take some time and lots of bureaucracy, and might cause some diplomatic turmoil with the country left out, but legally countries are generally free to draw up new treaties as needed
If if comes to that, there is a less complex option: it’s possible to strip an EU member states of voting rights. It requires that the member state in question systematically violate fundamental EU law, and all others must unanimously agree.
It is, of course, a last resort. It might backfire and damage EU unity rather than foster it. But it is there if really needed.
Won’t that damage the reputation of EU or whatever those countries like to call that new establishment?
The strategy of moving further inward with a small group of EU member states so that the rest may follow at their own pace or choose not to move inward and get left behind has been floated many times before. The whole EU history is one of gradual, step by step development into a big union. But it all started with a small set of countries making first steps.
The main reason it hasn’t happened yet must be that one of the critical big few that need to be in, refused it.
My bet is on Germany being that country. I also think this may just have changed. Merz may understand that to keep AfD and Musk from taking over by next elections, he has to start a power transfer to a new generation, so that the current blocks voting AfD find better alternatives that they feel represented by.
An initiative to boldy move further inward has the potential to rally voters, especially young ones that – regardless of whether they support it now already – are looking for bold moves that address key issues. Especially if the EU faces of that movement are young, as they should be, considering that it is a long journey that will take a long term commitment from its champions.
In theory yes, in practice no.
It would take decades to get all national parliaments to approve all the necessary treaty changes. And even if the deal was agreed that everyone would just join the new union with the exact same conditions as before you can be sure that every politician would have “but just this one exception” negotiation about every single little detail. Consider that every single treaty that makes a country a member of the EU was negotiated by a government that isn’t currently in power (except the treaties that were negotiated in the past couple of years). Which means that they are only honored because there is a tradition that new governments don’t tear up treaties that previous governments signed. Any miniscule movement in the country of contrarians that want to leave the EU would suddenly found themselves flooded with funding by billionaires and hostile states just to try to get one of the countries to not sign the new treaties.
Once you get past that impossible hurdle, there’s a much bigger issue of legal succession. What about the deals and treaties that the EU did with other countries? There are probably tens of thousands of those. Take the problems you’d have with EU members that still want to remain members to not renegotiate previous deals and multiply it by a thousand because you’re dealing with far more negotiations with governments that are potentially hostile now. You also have the problem of assets and institutions that you’d have to transfer to the new union. Every transfer of assets would be questioned in any available court in processes that would drag out for decades.
Yeah, theres literally nothing stopping them lol
One of the most realistic ways might be an opt-in military alliance, that way states that want to get involved, can.
Technically it would be perfectly possible, but politically almost impossible to make happen unless there were some really extreme events in the excluded member.
There are already procedures to exclude but not expel a member so if that were not possible for any reason I doubt the new treaty route would work.
This idea has been floating around under the name of “multi-speed Europe”. And as a Hungarian I totally understand why normal EU countries would go forward with it. Sadly.
The EU needs to change its rules so as the block could be viable to its future. Letting a couple wanna be dictators throwing road blocks every second is not going to solve anything, other than strengthen Putin’s hand!
Say a 3/4ths majority!