The President of Romania called for a reform of the Treaties

08/02/2024
News & Comment
Romania, UEF

The President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, in his speech to the European Parliament yesterday (Wednesday, 7 February) called for a reform of the Treaties to overcome the actual architecture of the European Union, for example overcome the veto mechanism, which he described as "unacceptable".

"I think three things need to be changed," says Klaus Iohannis, referring to the improvement of communication between the Union and the citizens, the amendment of the treaties to overcome the unanimity mechanism, and the urgency of a European foreign policy.

At the end of his speech, MEPs took the floor, including UEF President Domenec Ruiz Devesa, who emphasised the passage on the need for institutional reforms and then turned to Charles Michel, reminding him to put this debate on the agenda.

"I would also like to thank President Iohannis for his words. I congratulate him on his commitment to European integration and his Europeanism. I am also grateful that he mentioned the institutional dimension in his speech. It is clear that with an enlarged Europe, with the process of relaunching the enlargement process, we must accompany this process with the deepening of our political project in a federal key. You referred to the issue of not excluding the reforms of the Treaties, which I welcome, and I believe that we must also take a further step in that direction. You referred to the bridging clauses. That is true. They can be activated. They are in the Treaty of Lisbon so that more matters can be decided by qualified majority. But in 14 years the Council has not been able to activate a single one of them. I hope we do not have to wait another 14 years. Please support Parliament's proposal to reform the Treaties."

In the closing speech the President of Romania, said: "It is about the architecture of the Union. How do we make it better? And we have to improve it. Because if we take in Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans we will be a large union and this decision making, especially in crisis, war, pandemic, and energy crisis, has to be correct, transparent but fast. So, I believe we have to work on our architecture. Some of it might be possible to change without opening the Treaties. But some issues have to be changed in the Treaties. They are not perfect. Since we have these Treaties, I hope you don't mind me telling you, years have passed. We are a different Union and we work towards a different union and I hope you very much agree, we work towards a better Union, so let's work on this."

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