Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Russia Benefits from Flawed E.U. Federalism

In the E.U., the 27 state governments are able to wield a veto on most important policy proposals in the European Council. Expecting unanimity where not even consensus is enough is so utterly unrealistic at 27 that it may be time to reconsider whether the E.U. can afford such an easy (and tempting) means by which state governors can exploit the E.U. by essentially holding it hostage. To be sure, like the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, the veto in the European Council represents the residual sovereignty that states in both unions enjoy, but extortion for financial gain by means of threatening or exercising a veto in the European Council (and the committees of the Council of the E.U.) suggests that the continued use of a veto by state governments is too problematic to be continued. Residual sovereignty can find adequate representation by qualified majority voting, which is closer the threshold needed to maintain a filibuster in the U.S. Senate. That the E.U. state of Slovakia maintained its veto on a proposed number of federal sanctions against Russia on July 9, 2025 when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated international law in invading Ukraine is a good indication that the veto had outlived its usefulness and was being used by governors for sordid purposes by using the E.U. rather than strengthening it in foreign affairs.

On the very day when Ukraine’s President Zelensky and Pope Leo “discussed the Vatican as a possible location to host peace talks to end Russia’s full-scale invasion” and Zelensky thanked the pope for the Vatican’s help in reuniting 1,350 of more than 19,500 “children taken by Russia after Moscow’s 2022 invasion,”[1] the judges at the European Court of Human Rights, which is not part of the E.U., ruled that Russia’s government had violated international law not only by shooting down the MH17 commercial airliner, but also in “the murder, torture, rape, destruction of civilian infrastructure and kidnapping of Ukrainian children” in Ukraine.[2] Meanwhile, U.S. President Trump voiced frustration at Russia’s President Putin for not being willing to negotiate an end to the invasion, and Putin unleashed “a new record-breaking barrage of drones and missiles against Ukrainian cities.”[3]

On the very same day, the government of the E.U. state of Slovakia confirmed “that it would for the time being maintain its veto on the new package of sanctions that the European Union intends to impose on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine.”[4] The additional sanctions would target “Russia’s financial and energy sectors, including the Nord Stream pipelines.”[5] Countries supplying or financing Russia’s war machine would also be subject to sanctions. Besides being politically tone-deaf, the wayward state government did not object to the economic restrictions per se, but rather, to “the proposed phase-out of all Russian fossil fuels by the end of 2027.”[6] But because qualified majority-voting rather than unanimity applies to the phase-out proposal, the Slovak governor “resorted to sanctions, which require unanimity, to extract concessions from Brussels.”[7] What kind of concessions?  Plain and simply, the extortion of the E.U. for money as “compensation” for anticipated financial damages, even though the legal opinion of E.U.’s executive branch is that the E.U. prohibition of gas from Russia would “act as ‘force majeure’ in court and shield governments and companies against damages.”[8]

At the very least, the state’s governor was politically tone-deaf on July 9, 2025, more concerned with exploiting the veto mechanism for money than with the visuals in advantaging Russia by vetoing sanctions as leverage for the fossil-fuel prohibition that is subject only to qualified majority vote. That Slovakia’s government had no objection to the economic sanctions and yet maintained a veto against them in order to gain leverage on the gas prohibition, effectively making that proposal subject to a veto, shows that the veto mechanism was indeed subject to abuse at the expense of qualified majority voting. This hyperextension of the veto mechanism to a bill subject only to qualified majority voting suggests that the two voting mechanisms cannot coexist. Power abhors obstacles, and qualified majority voting is an obstacle to state governments accustomed to being able to veto federal legislation and foreign-policy proposals. If indeed the governmental sovereignty retained by the states is sufficiently represented in qualified majority voting, which is 55% of the states and 55% of the population of the E.U., the veto power is an excessive block by states on federal action and the benefits to Europe that can come from collective action. Both the value of such benefits in federal legislation and foreign policy and the exploitation by state governments of their veto power at the federal level argue against retaining the veto mechanism. Slovakia has laid bare the imbalance in the E.U.’s federal system as bottom-heavy at the expense of benefits that could be realized by collective action. The abuse of the veto authority is sufficiently evident in a veto that benefits Russia being confirmed on the very same day that the top court in Europe on human rights ruled against Russia’s invasion and the Pope met with Zelensky on a way forward on peace even as Putin continued to stall for time to unleash more bombs.

Abstractly speaking concerning the E.U., the whole is more than the sum of the parts, and the whole suffers to the extent that a part is able to direct the whole. That each part maintains its integrity as a unit does not justify any part in being able to hold the whole hostage for financial gain. It is utterly unrealistic to assume that a policy or law of the whole is or should be in the political and economic interests of every part. Lastly, for a part to put itself above the whole is presumptuous and egocentric, which is to say, selfish. Given the salience of self-interest, which stems from self-love, in human nature, undermining mechanisms designed to curb exploitation by selfishness at the expense of overall good is utterly foolish in any political society.



1. Gavin Blackburn, “Zelenskyy and Pope Leo XIV Suggest Vatican as Venue for Ukrainian Peace Talks,” Euronews.com, July 9, 2025.
2. Aleksandar Brezar, “Top European Court Rules Russia Violated International Law in Ukraine,” Euronews.com,
July 9, 2025.
3. Jorge Liboreiro, “Slovakia Maintains Veto on New Package of EU Sanctions against Russia,” Euronews.com, July 9, 2025.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.