It is one thing for a dog’s
tail to lead; even worse is the situation in which the tail refuses to let the
dog walk or run. The staying power of the principle of unanimity in the
European Council and the Council of the E.U. enables any one of the state
governments to block federal policy and law. Such a blockage makes the tyranny
of a minority look tame. In contrast, qualified-majority voting ensures that
enough of a majority—a “super-majority”—is in place that the resulting minority
should lose. The notion that every state government must be “on board”
for the E.U. to enact a policy or law is misplaced because governmental sovereignty
in that Union is “dual” because both the E.U.’s federal level and the state
governments have at least some sovereignty. The same is true of American
federalism. Neither the E.U. nor the U.S. is a confederation of sovereign
states; only in such a federation does the principle of unanimity fit.
Facing an uphill electoral
contest in two months, Hungary’s sitting prime minister, Viktor Orbán, had one
of his ministers, Peter Szijártó, announce on 20 February, 2026, “We are
blocking the €90 billion EU loan for Ukraine until oil transit to Hungary via
the Druzhba pipeline resumes.”[1]
This is an obvious example of a part putting its own interest ahead of the
whole, which includes not only the E.U. but also the entire world-order, given
Russia’s non-provoked aggression in Ukraine for years with impunity. Regarding
the E.U., the implication that a federal program should be in the particular
interests of each state in order to go forward reduces the E.U. to a mere
aggregation in which every part must be satisfied and thus federal action is
severely constrained even at the expense of the E.U. itself, meaning the
collective interest that goes beyond the aggregate of the particular interests
of the states.
Besides the systemic problem in
allowing each of 27 states to block federal action and even statements, Hungary’s
use of its veto to block the loan demonstrates that the governor of an E.U. state
is perfectly capable of wielding the veto power immaturely and irrationally.
Szijjártó claimed “Ukraine is blackmailing Hungary by halting oil transit in
coordination with Brussels and the Hungarian opposition to create supply
disruptions in Hungary and push fuel prices higher before the elections.”[2]
In other words, the E.U. state was blaming Ukraine. The problem with that
narrative is that the “Druzhba pipeline, which dates back to the Soviet Union,
was damaged after it was hit by a Russian strike and that has impacted transit.”[3]
That the strike had been unprovoked and Ukraine was in the midst of massive
power outages due to other Russian strikes seem not to have registered in
Budapest. Ukraine was “in the midst of a difficult winter, with gruelling
temperatures below zero. Russia’s constant pounding with missiles and drones
means a large part of [Ukraine’s] energy infrastructure has been destroyed and cannot
cope with the heating needs of civilians.”[4]
Was Ukraine to drop everything to fix the pipeline that Russia had damaged?
Rather than make this claim, the governor of Hungary could have weened his
state off Russian oil. The rationale for the veto is thus dubious at best, and this
in turn raises the question of whether the governors of the E.U. states are
capable of having a veto at the federal level, especially as one of the rationales
for the E.U. is to forestall war from breaking out between states or between a
state and a foreign country. This rationale is but one of ways in which the
interests of the whole—the European Union—are not mere aggregates of the particular
interests of the states, for none of the states has a mandate to look out for
peace throughout the E.U.
That Hungary even has a veto
over the loan is a stretch because the E.U. states of Hungary, Slovakia, and
the Czech Republic had successfully been granted federal exemptions from contributing
financially to the €90 billion loan. It was “subject to unanimity” nonetheless “because
it amends the E.U. budget rules to allow borrowing” for a foreign country.[5]
That the E.U. allowed exempted states to vote nonetheless is, I submit, yet
another indication that the E.U. was still too wedded to the principle of
unanimity and the states were too unwilling to give up that power. That Hungary’s
use of that power in this instance was so wrong-headed, for Russia rather than
Ukraine was responsible for the non-functioning pipeline, adds urgency to the
point that the E.U. should finally confront the question of whether to reform
itself by expunging the confederation-fitting principle of unanimity.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
