FLASH
Shkruar nga Paolo Valentino
Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the liberum veto was the right of any individual member of the confederate parliament to block a legislative proposal, force the dissolution of a session, and annul any legislation already passed...
In the powerful Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which dominated Central and Eastern Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries, the liberum veto was the right of any individual member of the confederate parliament to block a legislative proposal, force the dissolution of a session, and annul any legislation already passed. It was enough for one of the Sejm's nobles to say "Nie pozwalam!" (I do not allow it), and thus unanimity became the only means of approval.
Applied excessively from the mid-17th century onwards, the liberum veto was used to the advantage of neighboring powers such as Russia, Prussia and Austria, who, by corrupting even a single deputy, were able to sabotage laws and reforms, paralyzing the state. Historians now agree that it was the main cause of the collapse of the Confederation and, ultimately, of the subsequent partitions at the hands of greedy neighbors, who repeatedly wiped Poland off the map.
Almost three centuries have passed, but the lesson of the liberum veto is dramatically relevant. With a coincidental but symptomatic reduction of many of the reasons and causes of European paralysis, we have arrived at the limitation of unanimity in foreign policy, budget and strategic issues that vulcanizes the Union, making it marginal and irrelevant in the new world of predators.
With authority and clarity, Mario Monti has given due importance in these pages to the Prime Minister's statements in Brussels, which, almost as if they were a footnote, suddenly erased a historical thread of continuity in Italian foreign policy.
" I am not in favor of expanding majority voting, instead of unanimity, within European institutions. Of course it would be valuable and beneficial for Ukraine, but on many other issues the majority's positions may be far from ours and our national interests, which it is my priority to defend ," said Giorgia Meloni.
This is a significant departure. Although the statement requires qualification. Meloni is not the first Italian leader to consider the veto power a tool for protecting national interests. Recently, both center-right and center-left prime ministers, from Berlusconi to Renzi to Conte, have threatened or used it, especially in the first yellow-green coalition.
The demand for unanimity is now the millstone around Europe's feet. As MEP Sandro Gozi, author of a report on the institutional consequences of enlargement and the possible reforms without which the EU will not be able to welcome countries like Ukraine and Moldova, explained, "nationalists and sovereignists present the veto as the best guarantee of national interests, but in reality it is the best guarantee of the paralysis of the EU". Far beyond enlargement, without the end of unanimity, there will never be a common foreign policy, nor many of the reforms suggested by Mario Draghi in his Competitiveness Report.
One final consideration. European sovereignists claim to be in tune with the global dynamic, where strong new leaders, from Trump to Xi Jinping to Putin, are moving along ultranationalist lines. The difference is that they lead superpowers, whether economic or nuclear, while individually the small European nations can only be vassals or subjects. If sovereignty is necessary to survive and be counted on in a fragmented world, it is European sovereignty, for which unanimity, like the free veto of the Polish Confederation, is a recipe for disaster. / Adapted from “Pamphlet” from “Corriere Della Sera”
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