Educational news

BSoG Professor Frank Hoffmeister testifies in Bundestag on qualified majority voting

On Monday 23 November 2020, IES LLM Prof Dr Frank Hoffmeister testified in a parliamentary hearing at the German Bundestag on the topic of introducing qualified majority voting in the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy. Based on considerations relating to functional urgency, the cost of disunity and foreign attempts to divide the Union, professor Hoffmeister argued in favour of using more qualified majority voting in CFSP. Recent examples like the Belarus sanctions (taken as late as six weeks after the forged elections) and the EU Action Plan on Human Rights (not adopted as a strategy at the European Council, but as mere Council conclusions with the consequences that no implementing decisions can be taken by qualified majority under Article 31 para. 2, 1stindent TEU) showed that Member States insisted on unanimity in the Council. Therefore, he was in  favour of EU Treaty change: "We can no longer afford Europe to be a mere bystander on the international stage". Drawing on the positive experience with qualified majority voting in trade and development policies, he argued that foreign policy decision-making needs to follow suit. Both the video recording and the full text of Prof Dr Hoffmeister's intervention are available from the Bundestag website.