History will not wait for Europe’s unanimity

For years, it was clear where the world was heading. The warning signs were not subtle. They were debated, documented and repeatedly ignored. 

Europe is now paying the price of a decision-making system designed for a different era, a smaller Union and a more predictable world. Nowhere is this failure more visible than in foreign policy, security and defence.

Under the current system, a single member state can block collective action. Sometimes objections are made in good faith. Increasingly, they are not. Hungary, under Viktor Orbán, has repeatedly shown how unanimity can be weaponised to obstruct common positions, delay responses and weaken Europe’s credibility abroad. The result is paralysis. Europe hesitates, issues carefully worded statements and watches events move faster than its ability to respond.

This failure is often misrepresented as a lack of political will or worse, as proof that the European project itself is flawed. Neither is true. What we are seeing is a system doing exactly what it was designed to do. Unanimity guarantees the lowest common denominator. Those who criticise the European Union for being ineffective while opposing any reform of its decision-making rules are, in reality, defending a structure that can only ever produce this outcome.

There is a deeper contradiction at play. Many of the loudest critics of the EU admire the decisiveness of strong leaders elsewhere, their ability to act swiftly and without constraint, while insisting that the EU remain bound by procedures that make action almost impossible. They criticise Europe for being weak yet oppose every reform that would allow it to function.

What they ultimately want is not change but disappearance.

This is why, at the end of the last European legislature, I voted repeatedly for the removal of unanimity and for the creation of a genuine common foreign and security union. These were not symbolic gestures. They were deliberate choices in favour of an EU capable of acting and defending its values. No Maltese representative took this path before but the alternative was continued paralysis disguised as ‘neutrality’ and ‘national interest’.

Democracy does not mean giving one government the power to veto the collective interest of 26 others. Democracy means collective decision-making with safeguards, including strong protections for smaller states. What Europe has today is not balance. It is dysfunction by design. The consequences are no longer theoretical.

We are living in the most dangerous period since the end of WWII. Last week, the US decided to withdraw from several United Nations bodies whose sole purpose is to safeguard peace, protect civilians and uphold international law. These include the Peacebuilding Commission, the Peacebuilding Fund, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Office of the Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict and the International Law Commission, among others.

We are living in the most dangerous period since the end of World War II- Cyrus Engerer

This is not administrative housekeeping. It is a political choice.

The post war era was comparatively safe because almost all countries accepted a basic truth: peace, multilateralism and the rule of law served humanity’s common interests. That consensus is now fracturing.

One of the world’s most powerful countries has decided that global peace is no longer aligned with its own priorities. Instead, it is choosing isolation, coercion and the logic of bullying over cooperation.

Europe has already seen where this leads.

Ukraine was the first European territory to suffer the full force of a leader who decided that borders are optional and sovereignty is negotiable. This was never about one region alone. It was about testing limits, exploiting hesitation and normalising aggression. Greenland has now entered public discourse as a strategic object rather than a sovereign territory. Some dismiss this as rhetoric. History suggests otherwise.

Expansionism rarely announces itself openly. It advances incrementally, probing for silence and division.

This is why the debate about European defence is no longer abstract or ideological. It is necessary. And

this debate must extend beyond the EU. Europe is a continent, not a membership card. The security of EU member states is inseparable from that of the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway and EU candidate countries. Fragmented responses invite instability.

Small states, including Malta, have the most to lose in a world where power replaces rules. International law and multilateral institutions are not idealistic luxuries for smaller countries. They are protective shields. When those shields weaken, vulnerability grows.

The uncomfortable truth is this: Europe cannot outsource its security indefinitely. Dependence without autonomy is not partnership. It is exposure.

A European Defence Union is not about militarisation for its own sake.  It is about credibility, deterrence and the ability to act when borders, civilians and fundamental values are under threat. It is about ensuring that Europe can defend itself when alliances falter or priorities shift elsewhere.

Silence has never stopped expansionism. Delay has never deterred aggression. And paralysis has never preserved peace. Europe must decide whether it wants to remain a spectator to its own insecurity or finally take responsibility for its future.

History will not wait for unanimity.

C

Cyrus Engerer is a former Labour MEP.