Communication: A stronger global actor: a more efficient decision-making for EU Common Foreign and Security Policy

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In the complex, connected and contested world of today, the EU must protect its citizens, promote its values and interests, support the rules-based international order and export stability to its neighbourhood and beyond. The EU must also be able to respond to the expectations of third countries, international organisations and other international actors for it to play a key role in tackling regional and global challenges.

The 2017 Rome Declaration, adopted on the occasion of 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, recognised that a stronger European Union was a necessity. The Leaders emphasised in particular that the EU should become a stronger global actor. It must be better able to shape global events and better equipped to shoulder international responsibilities. The European Union must increase its capacity to ‘act credibly on the global stage’.

To achieve these objectives and become a stronger global actor, the EU must equip itself with the necessary instruments, notably by making its decision-making more efficient. To this end, in his State of the Union speech of 2017, President Juncker suggested ‘looking at which foreign policy decisions could be moved from unanimity to qualified majority voting’.

This Communication sets out the rationale for more efficient decision-making in some areas of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, explores the possibilities to do so that exist in the Treaty on European Union and identifies concrete and achievable areas where the Council could act by qualified majority rather than cling to unanimity.