With E.U. states like Germany,
Austria and Poland becoming increasingly active in patrolling their respective
borders at the expense of the Schengen Agreement, it makes sense that the proposed
E.U. budget announced in July, 2025 includes more money to protect the E.U.’s
borders from illegal crossings. This is important because reinstituting controls
on the borders of states contributes toward the visual of the E.U. coming apart
geographically. Such a set-back may be worse for the E.U. than the secession of
Britain was; in fact, letting that state go arguably strengthened the Union
because the British government consistently refused to admit that the E.U. is
more than a network of countries that the UK happened to belong to, which was
the view of the former governor, David Cameron.
Out of the €74
billion in the proposed E.U. budget of President Von der Leyen “earmarked in
the MFF to ‘make Europe safer and more secure,’ €26 billion” would “be
dedicated to migration management, including issues related to reception of
asylum seekers and other non-border related issues.”[1]
In the existing 2021-2027 budget, €25 billion in total went to migration,
with €14
billion for border management and €11 billion to asylum reception and
integration.[2]
With the federal budgets covering so many years, reforms allowing for easier fast-tracking of proposals to augment a current budget may be advisable in the face of some states effectively shedding the open-state-borders Schengen Agreement. Additionally, the stipulation that any state government can veto a proposed federal budget could be revisited, as states differ on how serious infractions are at their respective borders and thus on the merit of increasing federal spending so the concerned states might pull back and revert to the Schengen Agreement, for claims of emergency by the activated state governments have been specious, and perhaps even outright lies.
That unanimity would be needed to pass the proposed federal
budget, which in turn would hopefully strengthen the E.U.’s borders sufficiently
that certain state governors could relax and withdraw their forces at their respective
state borders ignores the political leverage that some state governors have
exploited by using their respective vetoes at the federal level. A certain
level of maturity all around is requisite to having the veto-mechanism with the
understanding that it is to be used only when a state’s interests would likely
be vitally impaired with the passage of a piece of legislation. Without
such maturity, all kinds of dysfunctional politics and dogmatic obstacles can
be expected in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. as the Commission
and the Parliament look on in utter disbelief.
Perhaps it is an overstatement to say that a potential implosion of the E.U. from within could be allowed to run its course because of a refusal to exculpate the principle of unanimity, and thus the state veto, from the involvement of the state governments at the federal level. To exclaim, “The E.U. is NOT a federation!” as a kind of instinctual urge is not a retort; rather, it is the sort of stubborn oblique denial that pushes off reform that could save the Union. That some state governments subject to the Schengen Agreement were already using the emergency clause inappropriately when President Von der Leyen released the Commission’s upcoming budget for the E.U. is witness enough that the stubborn insistence by some governors to retain the state veto power at the federal (or Union) level has prevented the E.U. from being able to adequately enforce and fulfill its own competencies (i.e., enumerated powers).
Is it not unethical to say, here is a power for you but we’re going to stop you along the way from being able to carry it out sufficiently even though it is your power? Is that not unfair, as well as counter-productive for the Union? Or are the circumscribed, petty interests of the parts greater than the interest of the whole where the benefits of collective action could otherwise be realized?
2, Ibid.
