Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission (the collective body that constitutes the Presidency of the EU), wants to add both Ukraine and Moldova to the EU, though at least one EU member-nation, Hungary, is opposed, and though the EU’s existing Constitution prohibits any new member-nation to be added unless all existing member-nations approve its application to join.
The EU’s Constitution is called the “Treaty on European Union”, and its Article 49 says that no nation can be added to the EU unless its existing member-nations are unanimous in approving its being added to the membership:
Any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them may apply to become a member of the Union. The European Parliament and national Parliaments shall be notified of this application. The applicant State shall address its application to the Council, which shall act unanimously after consulting the Commission and after receiving the consent of the European Parliament, which shall act by a majority of its component members. The conditions of eligibility agreed upon by the European Council shall be taken into account.
The conditions of admission and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the Union is founded, which such admission entails, shall be the subject of an agreement between the Member States and the applicant State. This agreement shall be submitted for ratification by all the contracting States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.
Every EU Member-nation has a member in the EU Council, and all of those must be united in approving the applicant-nation’s application, in order for a new member-nation to be added.
Consequently, the EU will violate its tradition of never even accepting an application to join, unless all existing members are willing to consider that nation’s application. Implicitly, the EU is telling Hungarians to replace their existing Government, and are expecting that the newly elected Hungarian Government will support the applications of Ukraine and Moldova to join. It’s an implicit warning to Viktor Orban, Hungary’s current Prime Minister, that the EU will do whatever it can to get him removed and replaced by someone whom the EU will accept to represent Hungary.
On September 29th, Politico headlined “Costa seeks to bypass Orbán’s veto on Ukraine’s EU membership bid: Brussels’ rules requiring all 27 member countries to agree on new entrants will face scrutiny at a summit this week in Copenhagen.”
On September 30th, the Financial Times headlined “EU moves to advance Ukraine’s accession by sidestepping Hungary: Brussels advises Kyiv to advance technical work despite Budapest holding up talks”.
The FT article reported that, “Once Hungary was willing to lift its veto, the formalities could be sped up. ‘In theory you could then open and close a cluster on the same day,’ one of the officials said.” In other words: by breaking tradition on this, as von der Leyen wants, both Ukraine and Moldova might possibly be added to the membership almost immediately after the new, pro-war, Government becomes installed in Hungary and/or in any other possible anti-war existing EU member-nation.
In the eventuality that there would be no success at regime-change in Hungary, or if some other existing member-nation decides to oppose adding Ukraine and Moldova, the EU might get impatient with adhering to the existing Treaty on European Union, and try to Amend it by replacing the existing unanimity-requirement by making that instead something less, such as a mere majority-approval requirement. However, Amending that Treaty (the EU’s Constitution) has been made prohibitively difficult by the Treaty’s Article 48, which requires unanimity in order to Amend the document.
As-of now, there have been no Amendments to the Treaty on European Union. This would be the first.
The Treaty fails to include any Article or clause describing a process by which to expel a member-nation (such as Hungary) — even if they now might wish to do that in order to expedite their transition from having been almost exclusively an economic union, to becoming now a military union.
The EU’s apparent urgency to get at least Ukraine into its membership is actually part of the EU’s intention to become a replacement for NATO, an anti-Russian military alliance (the EU having been the anti-Russian economic alliance) which WOULDN’T be dependent upon the U.S. EU countries have been just colonies of the U.S. empire. Consequently, for example, the “New Union Post” a “Magazine on EU enlargement,” headlined on August 21st, “Is EU accession a security guarantee for Ukraine? Thanks to the mutual defence clause enshrined in the Treaties, EU enlargement could represent ‘a very strong guarantee on paper,’ says EUISS senior analyst Ondrej Ditrych. However, it needs to be backed up by capacities and plans to ‘fill the widening deterrence gap caused by uncertainty about the US’s credible commitment’ in Europe.”
This way, the EU could take over from NATO the war to conquer Russia.
Perhaps Europe’s billionaires see the potential to enable the armaments manufacturers that they control become the profiteers — no longer America’s billionaires to be that — from the war in Ukraine. They might make more money by competing against the U.S. empire than by being parts of the U.S. empire. For example: by replacing NATO as the drafter of technical standards for their weaponry, an all-European EU could then advantage European ‘defense’ firms (no longer U.S.-based ones), for purchases of weapons, by all European Governments. Whereas now, U.S. billionaires are the main profiteers from armaments (which are sold not only to the U.S. Government but to all Governments throughout the U.S. empire), European billionaires might come to replace them in that capacity. By far the most profitable segment of the S&P is the ‘defense’ (aggression) sector. So, replacing U.S. billionaires in that capacity might enormously boost their personal fortunes. The war in Ukraine is, after all, extremely profitable (though it enormously increases the indebtedness — and thus taxes — of EU Governments, and of the U.S. Government). Anyway, this is a sensible way to interpret Ursula von der Leyen’s initiative here.
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