Meeting at its annual congress in Vienna on Saturday 4 July, the European liberal family came out in favour of greater use of qualified majority voting by the Member States to take decisions in the Council of the European Union in the fields of enlargement and foreign affairs.
In the context of EU accession negotiations with third countries, the ALDE Party calls on the EU institutions and Member States, in a resolution adopted at its annual congress, to “shift rapidly from oral reassurances to structured and clear criteria-based timelines, applying Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) to all intermediate integration steps to ensure a predictable process”.
The European liberals advocate “phased” integration of candidate countries, “with priority being given to access to the single market”, with the aim of accelerating progress towards “full EU membership”, instead of creating second-class Member States.
Moreover, in the field of EU foreign and security policy, the ALDE Party is calling on the Member States to make use of the possibilities for deciding by qualified majority. It cites in particular Article 31(2) of the Treaty on European Union, according to which, in order to adopt a decision defining an EU action or position on the basis of a previous European Council decision, the Council of the EU decides by qualified majority.
The use of the “passerelle” clauses already laid down in the European treaties is strongly supported.
In the case of European sanctions targeting natural persons or entities from third countries, the liberals take the view that the EU regime should certainly be drawn up and endorsed unanimously by the Member States, but that the listing of individuals or entities under sanctions should be decided by qualified majority as a decision implementing the general regulatory framework.
In addition, the European treaties could be revised so that all international agreements concluded by the EU are endorsed by qualified majority of the Member States.
It should be noted that MEP Svenja Hahn, a member of the German liberal FDP party, was re-elected this weekend as head of the ALDE Party.
See all the resolutions adopted by the ALDE Party: https://aeur.eu/f/mqh (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)