Resolution submitted by: PC1 – Institutions and Governance
Adopted by the Spring Federal Committee on 30th of March 2025

 

JEF Europe,

• Recognizing that the current unanimity requirement for treaty change is too difficult an obstacle to overcome, causing legislative stagnation and inability to proceed with further integration;
• Alarmed by the continuous threat of vetos being exercised by authoritarian leaders seeking to undermine the democratic values of the EU;
• Frustrated by the threat of veto being leveraged as a tool for political blackmail;
• Disappointed by the excessive length of the EU treaty ratification process, which is particularly problematic in emergency situations, or times of crisis;
• Regretting that a single Member State failing to ratify a treaty change after agreeing to it causes the entire long process to fail as exemplified by the French and Dutch examples in 2005;
• Underlining the democratic deficit in having the popular will of the European people and their representatives be blocked by a single Member State, contradicting the principles of representative democracy;
• Aware that historical unions and federations required moving away from unanimity in order to succeed;
• Recognizing that federated structures have historically faced challenges due to unanimity requirements for constitutional amendments, leading to governmental paralysis or dissolution
• Noting for example that
  • the United States, under the Articles of Confederation, required unanimous consent from all 13 states for amendments, hindering national adaptability, and subsequently adopted a more flexible supermajority approach in its 1789 Constitution, facilitating significant reforms;
  • the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth’s liberum veto allowed any single deputy to dissolve legislative sessions, causing legislative paralysis and foreign interference, until its abolition by the Constitution of 3 May 1791;
  • Canada, prior to 1982, required unanimous provincial consent for constitutional amendments, leading to gridlock, and introduced the “7/50 formula” in the Constitution Act, 1982;
  • Australia, since 1901, has employed an amendment process requiring a double majority in a national referendum, ensuring both popular support and federal balance without unanimous state approval; Switzerland allows constitutional amendments through majority votes both nationwide and across cantons, facilitating constitutional evolution without unanimous canton consent;
  • Germany’s Basic Law permits amendments with a two-thirds majority in both federal legislative chambers, ensuring substantial consensus while preventing individual states from vetoing changes;
• Hence recalls that it is historically resolved that adopting supermajority or qualified majority systems in federated structures effectively overcomes legislative paralysis and enables adaptation to evolving societal needs;
• Convinced that only by abandoning the unanimity requirement for treaty change decisions can the European Union hope to stand the test of time;
• Noting that an improved treaty change process would facilitate other reforms that the EU urgently needs, including a reform of its common foreign policy, a fiscal union, and the strengthening of the rule of law;
• Recognizing that the current treaties would be best replaced by a true federal constitution, but convinced that any future constitutional amendment process should overcome the need for unanimity in the same manner;
• Calling for a constituent assembly to elaborate a constitution for a Federal Europe, but convinced that a more simple treaty change and constitutional amendment process is needed before and after such an assembly takes place;

JEF Europe, therefore,

1. Calls on the current treaty change method to be modified and replaced by a two track system where one of the following conditions needs to be met for a treaty change proposal to succeed:
   1. A two thirds supermajority in the EU Parliament and an enhanced qualified majority of two thirds of the European Council members (in addition to the usual qualified majority requirements), followed by ratification by at least two thirds of Member States;
   2. An EU – wide referendum, in which a majority of voters approve the change, including a majority of voters in at least half of the Member States, triggered by a simple majority in both the EU Parliament and the European Council;
2. Calls for the citizens themselves to be able to initiate such a process. Should EU citizens gather a certain amount of signatures (taking inspiration from the current European Citizens’ Initiative), both the Parliament and the Council should be obligated to discuss these proposals, to vote on them and, if both chambers vote in favour, those proposals would be set to an EU-wide referendum;
3. In case the current European Council is replaced by an elected European Senate in a future federal leap, article 1.a. would require a two-thirds supermajority in the European Senate in place of the qualified majority in the European Council, and articles 1.b. and 2. would require a simple majority in the European Senate in place of the simple majority in the European Council;
4. Calls for the process outlined in articles 1, 2 and 3 to be used for constitutional amendments, once the EU adopts a constitution and demands that such an amendment process be included in the new constitution.