The European superstate, irked by dissent among its sovereign member states, wants to tighten the screws to bring into line what the Brussels bureaucrats appear to see as wayward provinces. The changes, in line with the EU vision — or threat — of “ever closer union” among the continent’s once-free states, would remove, our Aleksandra Gadzala Tirziu reports, member states’ veto power over matters like defense and taxation. Brexit looks wiser every day. 

The clamp-down on dissent was the subject of a parley among the continent’s foreign ministers today at Berlin convened by Germany’s top diplomat, Annalena Baerbock. “A larger, stronger Union,” is how she mutters the matter, “making the European Union fit for enlargement and future members fit for accession.” To Ms. Baerbock and those aligned with her in the EU, it appears fitness for membership is associated with acquiescence.

The EU’s idea is to expand its membership, but without running the risk of any disruption to the superstate’s leftist policies. The war in Ukraine exposed the need to end any “selfish blockades” by EU member states, Chancellor Scholz has said. “We simply can no longer afford national vetoes,” he explained, “if we want to continue to be heard in a world of competing great powers.” This seems to be a pointed reference to Hungary and Poland.

Both nations have tended to lean to the right of the EU’s prevailing liberalism, and both have exercised their veto right on issues like the bloc’s dysfunctional migration policy. The days of being able to influence the course of EU policy, though, may be ending soon. Germany’s foreign office suggests the removal of the veto is inevitable, because “the EU must adopt a unified stance as an international actor and remain capable of action.”

The details were outlined in September in a report from what Politico describes as a panel of “Franco-German experts” who were tasked with explaining “the need to reform the decision-making processes” within the EU’s Council, a top governing body. “Before the next enlargement,” the report coolly states, “all remaining policy decisions should be transferred from unanimity to QMV.” That’s a bureaucratic acronym for a “qualified majority vote.”

In layman’s terms, that represents the end of the EU’s founding principle of consensus among its member nations. Admittedly, the proposal envisions subjecting the council’s actions to what it calls “full co-decision” with Europe’s Parliament — “to ensure appropriate democratic legitimacy.” The very idea of stripping member states of their traditional veto, though, belies such high-minded talk. It’s a power grab, plain and simple. 

Plus, too, now that this proposal has been mooted, don’t expect the EU to back down, if recent history is any guide. Of the plans under discussion today at Berlin, the German foreign ministry cheerfully explains, “The question is no longer whether EU enlargement” — along with the governance changes — “will occur, but rather how and when this will happen.” That’s a reminder of how in the past, the EU has run roughshod over opposition to getting its way.

Feature how, in 2005, voters in France and Holland nixed the EU’s proposed constitution when it was put to them for ratification. The rejection shocked the EU elite, which had seen the endorsement of the voters as a mere formality. The Guardian called it a “crisis” for the push to centralize the EU. Far from being chastened, though, the EU simply took the question out of the hands of the voters, reframing the matter in 2009 as the Treaty of Lisbon.

The EU is sometimes likened to America, where no state can veto a federal law. Yet the EU is nothing like America, whose government’s powers are limited by our strict Constitution. The EU, in any event, takes a dim view of America. What, moreover is the merit in a Union that fails to grasp that Hamas is at fault in the war it precipitated by its slaughtering Jewish civilians? The best thing for Europe’s states is independence à la Brexit. Otherwise it’ll soon be Hotel California.