comment: >
  
  Except many parts of the EU already did away with the veto in exchange for majority voting requiring 55% of countries and 65% of population, that is: the large countries cannot unilaterally overrule the small countries, and small countries cannot unilaterally overrule the large. This proposal is only for the broadening of the scope of a majority voting system already implemented.
context: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Wednesday that the European Union could no longer afford to have decisions blocked by individual member states.
  "Qualified majority voting can lead to fairer...results for all of us," Baerbock told a conference in Portugal's capital Lisbon. "We must be capable of acting efficiently and swiftly."
  Baerbock said that EU countries are often not even able to draft a press release "because they cannot agree on the same wording". >
  
  The big issue is the use of the veto as a bargaining. Hungary did use their veto to block aid to Ukraine but removed it in exchange of a deal on EU subsidie. >
  
  bro the only reason veto exists is bargaining >
  
  More like the veto exists to maintain sovereignty.
  It’s a delicate act. Do you want to be a member of a union or do you want to be in control of your own country?
  In the United States the states can’t veto what the federal government does. Instead they have to go to a federal court and ask the federal court to agree that the federal government broke its agreement to the states. In this sense you can say that the states lost some of their sovereignty.
  The EU wants to be a union but not have individual states give up its sovereignty.
  You have a similar effect for the United Nations and the Security Council with its veto capability. It’s about preserving sovereignty for the parties involved. >
  
  Countries that have individual veto can only lose it if they vote to lose it, and they’d be mad to do so. >
  
  There should be a veto proof majority though. 
  Even if you set the bar to 90% it would hobble bad faith actors. >
  
  So any decision that is good for 90% but catastrophic for the remaining 10% would be a choice between voting for something catastrophic for your people or having your country leave the EU (again with potentially catastrophic consequences). 
  There's good reason why there are single country veto areas. >
  
  Honestly, that scenario seems less likely than anti-democratic efforts from Hungary and Poland fucking some shit up. >
  
  Only because of the same concessions/negotiations that occur behind the scenes
  You have to be fair when comparing. >
  
  You want to be fair with comparisons? Then go look up the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its veto system. >
  
  Why don't you tell me what you're trying to say.
  That veto powers are bad?
  There's a reason they exist. >
  
  They exist because at some point someone wanted it, and it was agreed on.
  The still exist because somebody doesn’t want to relinquish that power. >
  
  It's a nice sentiment considering Hungary especially has become so obstructionist. Political arson is not a great way to represent your country. That said, majority vote power in a union of sovereign nations is not likely to be the best solution. There's obviously no perfect way to go about this, but there should definitely be checks and overrides for all of these processes so things can actually be done. Not that I'm out here riding for Germany or France, but the EU is a good thing to have. >
  
  
  A qualified majority is reached if two conditions are simultaneously met: 55% of member states vote in favour - in practice this means 15 out of 27. the proposal is supported by member states representing at least 65% of the total EU population.
  
  Why should 500k be able to hold 450 milion hostage? >
  
  Well, unlike the United States, as stated in other posts, these are all sovereign nations and not subsidized landmasses like states are. It's not really about the majority, it is about the interests of the nations and their own ability to govern. >
  
  That's actually the exact situation the United States used to be. Before the Civil War, the states had far more power than they do today. The issue of slavery just happened to be the power possessed by each state that was tearing the union apart. >
  
  
  A better analogy might be if the US government was in a union with, say, Mexico, Argentina and Brasil - and decisions made in Rio could overrule decisions and policy made by the US government.
  
  You mean the Articles of Confederation? >
  
  
  afaik there was no US President until the articles of confederation morphed into the Constitution drawn up in 1789. In the EU each country has it's own such President (or equivalent head of state) already, and in some cases, their constitutions have been in place for hundreds of years.
  
  I'm unsure what this is supposed to be proving. The Articles of Confederation did have Presidents, and each state did have an elected head of state in the form of their governor. 
  Not to mention that American governments grow out of the English government, and so inherited the traditions of the English constitution despite eventually codifying our own in writing while the English still use an unwritten one (when you see the Supreme Court bringing up and arguing about English law from the 1600s when deciding a modern issue, this is why). 
  And then, of course, each state adopted its own constitution in either 1776 or 1777 when they officially broke from England. States that came to exist after the war, of course, did not draft theirs until later. >
  
  Um, isn't that reasoning why Britain left? >
  
  One of many >
  
  Sounds nice but think of the day Germany will be against, and everyone else for. >
  
  In a democracy, sometimes you get outvoted. >
  
  The council is literally the heads of state. EP is directly elected. All other institutions are appointed by one or both of the above. And if you don't like it, you can leave, as the UK has shown us.
  Unless you can't be bothered to look up the first thing about the EU before criticizing it, your comment is something called a "lie." >
  
  If you wanted to disband the EU from the inside, trying to get rid of the veto would be the best way to do it.
  Federalizing Europe is insanely unpopular, and that's essentially what this is. The problem is that some people have decided the EU is a group of countries that have to act like one country instead of just being a free trade/defensive treaty. >
  
  Here‘s what she said:
  
  We sometimes have situations where we want to act as the EU but unfortunately are not even able to formulate a press release because we cannot agree on the full wording. That is why I suggest that we make better use of the possibilities that the EU treaties already offer today.
  One example: We recently launched a training mission for Ukrainian forces, with a decision that required unanimity. After a long debate, Hungary decided to "constructively abstain," allowing the others to go ahead.
  We want to build on such pragmatic solutions so that we as the EU can live up to our responsibility as a strong global player - whether through this form of constructive abstention or the passerelle clause, which is already in the treaties, or through qualified majority voting in specific, specifically defined policy areas such as climate-related issues, sanctions or human rights.
  
  Source, translated with DeepL, emphasis mine >
  
  Its kind of shocking how many people here seem to think that we should get rid of the veto.
  The veto was promised to protect smaller countries from the influence of larger countries, and also for more self-centered countries like France or the Netherlands for example.
  People here seem to think that a removal of the Veto would be accepted by literally everyone except Poland or Hungary but that's not the case, many countries would not want to get rid of the veto, and any attempt to get rid of it in a way that can not be vetoed would mean that multiple countries would immediately leave the EU, effectively leading to the EU's collapse.
  As annoying as vetoes are, they're necessary when multiple large groups of people are involved, all with their own interests and wishes, a removal of the veto would mean that countries lose their sovereignty.
  There haven't been any recent polls on it (at least that I can find), but last time they did in 2017, There were many more people against a Federalized Europe than in favor of it, with a decent portion of people that weren't sure or had no opinion. Even in Germany it only had 30% support and 33% against, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark all had 10\~13% in favor and 48\~52% against.
  While somewhat dramatic, it would be better to either suspend or remove countries from the EU than abolishing the veto. At least the countries that are holding up the European Union, and those not in favor of a Federalized Europe wouldn't then be threatened by having their sovereignty sabotaged. >
  
  A federalized Europe would be way more far-reaching than just eliminating the single country veto, so those polls are not really relevant. The treaty of Lisbon already established qualified majority voting in a number of policy areas by the way, so it's not as revolutionary as you make it sound. >
  
  Abolishing the veto and letting everything go down to a vote is exactly what federalization of Europe entails. Rome wasn't built in one day after all. If the European Union decides they want something, you can't stop it. You have effectively lost all sovereignty.   
  Yes, there are some areas currently in which you can't veto but those are limited, and even though it by definition somewhat undermines sovereignty slightly, it doesn't give that perception to people. Just because they're fine with those certain topics not being veto-able doesn't mean they're fine with everything else not being veto-able. >
  
  Of course they can stop it, they can leave? The ability to cede from the group inherently maintains the sovereignty of the individual states. >
  
  Thank you for reiterating what I said in my first post. >
  
  But my point is that the removal of the veto is no threat to sovereignty, they can simply remove themselves from the organization if the organization goes in a direction they do not like. Besides that it's just an international treaty. 
  I do agree that removing the veto would result in a much smaller EU most likely, but that does not mean that the removal of the veto would be  sovereignty violation. That is two separate issues. >
  
  But the problem is that we don't know how many countries would be left after that, we don't even know if the EU would still exist at all.
  Its foolish to abolish the veto just because Hungary and Poland are in the way, only to then ruin and/or destroy the entire EU. >
  
  you would certainly know how many countries are left based on the discussion that would lead up to such a historic change, do you think it would just be a magic switch flipped and then poof, veto power is gone?
  that would be a debate that would take a minimum of years >
  
  True, but I'm against it regardless of how many countries would jump out in the event that it happens. Anyways, they're not having that kind of debate, the only country that actually spews this is Germany, and this only gives credence to the far right's anti-EU rhetoric. >
  
  It's interesting watching this from the US. Increasingly these days, Europe is viewed as the EU, rather than the constituent nations, at least over here. Stuff like this rather hammers home that such a view is not really accurate.
  To be honest, from where I sit, it kind of looks like the EU is an attempt to get the benefits of an American style union, while preserving the individual nations autonomy to a much greater extent. Somewhat like the old Article of Confederation, though even that isn't a 1 to 1 comparison. 
  Still, considering that most of Europe was trying to kill other parts of Europe within the last few centuries, and the sheer variations in culture, it makes sense to me that a true Federal system isn't realistic. Maybe in another century, if the various populations and cultures intermingle more and begin to identify as European first, rather than German or French or Hungarian. Not anytime soon though. >
  
  
  it kind of looks like the EU is an attempt to get the benefits of an American style union, while preserving the individual nations autonomy to a much greater extent.
  
  That's exactly what the EU is.
  
  Somewhat like the old Article of Confederation, though even that isn't a 1 to 1 comparison.
  
  It's close enough, and it shows why the EU is just as doomed as the United States was under the AofC.  The US only survived, and later became a world power, because it adopted a much stronger central government.  You just can't have it both ways: you can't enjoy the economic benefits of a large American-style union without mostly abolishing sovereignty.  If you want a loose confederation, you'll never get the kind of benefits the American system has, because the member states can never all agree to anything.
  Ask anyone in the German political system if they think Germany should reform itself into a loose confederation with all the German states having sovereignty.  I'm sure they'd all reject this idea: it would make Germany no longer the huge economic power it is now. >
  
  The individual veto was promised to countries to alleviate fears that they would simply be overridden by the larger countries.
  Removing the individual country veto is just the first step, if they get that they will move on to the second step of "why does 5 million people Denmark have as much of a say as 80 million Germany?"
  And then the problems of anywhere that isn't the high population areas stop being important, as resources get bundled even further into managing the voting populations, just like in the US