In response, Juncker is preparing to hit back. Next week, he is expected to launch an overhaul of the EU’s obscure and dysfunctional decision-making process, which allows countries to saddle the Commission with the final call on critical but potentially unpopular policies.
His goal: to overhaul the so-called “comitology” process and force national governments to take responsibility for decisions made in Brussels.
A stark example of how the EU’s legislative sausage gets made will take place next month when European countries need to decide whether to clear genetically modified crops for cultivation. The countries have been unable to reach a verdict. If they fail to agree in March, the European Commission will be forced to take the decision, leaving Juncker, yet again, to take the flack. [...]
A Commission “options paper” on how to reform the comitology process lays out four ideas. They include changing the voting rules so that abstentions are not counted when calculating the qualified majority needed in a committee. Another option would be to refer decisions back to the Council of Ministers if national experts fail to reach a conclusion.
The other two options are a proposal that would require a positive majority only in sensitive areas surrounding health and food safety, and a scheme in which countries would vote multiple times until a conclusion was reached.
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