Georgian Dream Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili questioned the benefits of European Union membership if the bloc abolishes the unanimity principle in decision-making, a move he said major powers appear to be seeking and which would be “catastrophic” for smaller states, arguing that staying outside the EU could even be more “advantageous” for them.
In a July 27 social media post, Papuashvili argued that there is a “growing impression” that Europe’s major powers want to “take over” the EU, which, he said, “would pose a fundamental threat not only to Europe’s political balance and the enlargement process, but also to the values on which the European Union was founded and which have sustained it to this day.”
“According to the German Foreign Minister, twelve countries have already joined Germany’s initiative to abolish the principle of unanimity in EU decision-making. If this initiative is implemented, the European Union will, almost certainly, be transformed from a union of equal member states into a union ruled by the major powers,” Papuashvili wrote.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul called in early May for the EU’s unanimity principle to be scrapped, arguing that qualified majority voting should be used instead. At the time, Euronews reported that twelve countries had backed the initiative, which emerged amid repeated obstruction by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of EU decisions on support for Ukraine.
Around the same time, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reportedly floated the idea with top EU officials of “associate membership” for Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans as a way to accelerate their integration into the bloc, potentially without granting them voting rights during an initial phase of membership.
“Membership of the European Union is not an end in itself,” Papuashvili argued. “Membership is a means by which a country can protect its national interests more reliably.”
According to Papuashvili, the unanimity principle is what guarantees this opportunity for smaller states. “It [unanimity principle ] gives a small state the right to block a decision that would be harmful to it and to demand that its national interests be taken into account,” he said.
If the unanimity principle is abolished, in Papuashvili’s view, smaller states will become “entirely dependent” on the will of major powers and will no longer be able to protect their “vital interests.”
“In such circumstances, the issue would no longer be one of sharing part of a country’s sovereignty through EU membership — a voluntary and balanced choice currently made in pursuit of broader economic, political and security objectives. Instead, it would amount to the almost complete loss of genuine sovereignty,” he said, adding that “from an independent political entity, it is reduced to a small region or province within a much larger political system.”
While such a move would benefit major powers, Papuashvili argued, it would represent a “catastrophic change” for smaller countries. He asked: “What is the point of membership if its principal benefits and instruments of influence are taken away from the outset?”
According to Papuashvili, if a country is deprived of the ability to support decisions that benefit it, advance its interests, and prevent decisions that would harm it, the EU itself becomes “stripped of its significance as a means of protecting national interests,” while “both the political appeal of membership and its fundamental rationale disappear.”
“Moreover, under such conditions, remaining outside the European Union might even prove more advantageous for a small state, since it would at least retain the freedom to make its own independent decisions,” he wrote.
Papuashvili suggested that one indirect objective of the debate could be to halt enlargement, claiming that it has become “increasingly clear” that “no one is contemplating the admission of new members into the European Union in its current form.”
“The central question, therefore, is not merely when we will be admitted to the European Union. The central question is: what kind of European Union are we being invited to join, with what rights and with what degree of equality as a member?” he said.
“For membership that deprives a country of its sovereign rights without providing mechanisms for their protection is not integration, but the abolition of sovereignty,” he concluded.
In June, Papuashvili similarly criticized what he called the “legal segregation of countries,” accusing the EU of viewing future members “as less equal than the others, in an Orwellian sense.” He made the remarks in response to comments by EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos on “new safeguards” in accession treaties.
Also Read:
