Eduardo González
The Socialist Parliamentary Group in the Congress has requested the Lower House’s support for the Government’s position in favor of strengthening the European Union’s decision-making mechanisms by qualified majority in areas such as taxation, foreign policy, and, in critical circumstances, the Common Security and Defense Policy.
In a non-binding motion presented on October 17 for debate in the Joint Committee for the European Union and published this week in the Official Gazette of the Spanish Parliament (BOCG), the PSOE recalls that, “in recent years, there has been intense debate within European institutions about the need to strengthen the Union’s capacity to act, through a more agile and effective decision-making system.”
This debate is “a consequence of the need to adapt to the new geopolitical reality, characterized by greater international instability and uncertainty, which demands a more independent EU, capable of speaking with one voice and continuing to react swiftly to crisis situations, as occurred during the pandemic or with the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” it continues. Furthermore, the EU is immersed in “a context of enlargement” in which “having the most effective decision-making procedures possible is essential.”
According to the Socialist Group, “at times, the current decision-making process, especially that of the Council, is ineffective even for a Union of twenty-seven Member States.” “Within the Council, decisions are normally adopted by consensus,” but, “in accordance with the Treaty on European Union (TEU), some matters are adopted unanimously, such as those related to the common foreign and security policy, the accession of new countries, taxation, or the harmonization of national laws, among others,” it continues.
“The principle of unanimity, which has guaranteed unity and solidarity among the 27 member states, has sometimes been abused or even manipulated by third parties, serving to block collective EU action,” warns the PSOE.
The Socialist Group recalls that, on September 10, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, defended in her 2025 State of the Union Address to the European Parliament “the need to move to qualified majority voting in some areas, such as foreign policy.”
Spain, the PSOE continues, “has been advocating for years a position aligned” with this proposal and is part, along with other member states, of the Group of Friends of Qualified Majority Voting “with the aim of influencing the necessary change from the unanimity rule, replacing it with qualified majority voting in areas considered sensitive for member states.”
Furthermore, this issue was raised during Spain’s Presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2023, and Spain’s new Foreign Action Strategy (2025-2028) has established, among its general actions, “working towards a more coherent and dynamic EU, through the implementation of more agile consultation mechanisms and the extension of qualified majority voting procedures.”
For all these reasons, the Socialist Group calls on the Congress to show “its support for the Government of Spain in its political and institutional actions to advance the adoption of decisions by qualified majority in the EU, through the bridge clauses, extending qualified majority voting to areas such as taxation, foreign policy, and, critically, the Common Security and Defence Policy.”