I do like to be right and first #1

First steps toward eliminating the veto for the 27 members of the European Union

A new feature for Andelman Unleashed: from time to time a look at those moments when I’ve been right and first !

From Politico’s Brussels Playbook this morning:

EVER CLOSER UNION: Don’t write off the idea of revising the EU’s foundational treaties just yet. The concept first got a boost last week at the conclusion of the Conference on the Future of Europe, the EU’s year-long bid to let citizens have a say in the bloc’s future. And while there was a cool initial response from a group of 13 mainly Nordic and Eastern European countries (as Playbook first reported), some of the EU’s big guns are now pushing back in what reads suspiciously like a rejoinder.

In a new letter, seen by Playbook, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain call the CoFoU (apparently a new acronym that has entered the EU lexicon) a “special opportunity” to develop the EU. Notably, the countries give a cautious thumbs-up to changing the bloc’s treaties — if needed — to adopt some of the conference’s recommendations. The conference called for sweeping reforms to make the EU more democratic and abolish the system allowing one country to veto foreign policy and tax decisions...

Drawing the battle lines: The good news for reform proponents is that some of the EU’s biggest voices are open to the idea (France is not expected to sign the paper because it currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency).....

Look for an initial moment of truth when the Parliament, as expected, calls for a convention to start the process of treaty change in June......

An issue I raised on Monday in my latest CNN Opinion column:

Putin's useful allies in the heart of Europe 

   Some excerpts (click here for the full column!): 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has just enough allies in just enough places to throw a wrench in the efforts of Western alliances to thwart his ambitions -- deepening the wedge between member states that suits his purposes to a tee.

Putin's closest ally in the European Union, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has threatened to veto proposed sanctions on Russian oil that the other 26 member states have approved. Similarly in NATO, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not looking favorably at the possible accession of historically neutral powers Finland and Sweden, and on which the rest of the alliance is supportive of them joining.....

So, what to do about the toxic delays being forced by Hungary and Turkey? The answer is sadly simple -- play the same game Putin's been playing for years. When you can't win by traditional rules, go around them.....Make Orban and Erdogan irrelevant. All 26 other EU members should simply implement the oil embargo. And NATO should simply pave the way for Sweden and Finland's accession.

"The 'unanimity' rule was foolish to begin with and now is the time to test it," Harvard Professor Robert I. Rotberg, founding director of the Intrastate Conflict program at the Kennedy School of Government, told me in an e-mail exchange.....

One solution to the problem posed by the leaders of Hungary and Turkey, which is being actively pursued by Rotberg together with a group consisting of some 40 former heads of state and an equal number of Nobel Prize winners, is the creation of an International Anti-Corruption Court. He noted this "would be a good place to try Erdogan, Orban, Putin, and many more. That is why it is needed. So, we are moving."....

Russia has been playing the unanimity card since Joseph Stalin set up the game at the Yalta Conference in 1945 when he demanded a veto for all five permanent members of the UN Security Council as the price for agreeing to participate in a United Nations....

The problem is not dissimilar to the dilemma established by America's founding fathers in creating the Electoral College. Its original goal was, at least in part, to persuade the smaller American states to agree to a union that they thought -- quite rightly -- would otherwise be dominated by a handful of larger states. This fear and the compromise have long outlived their usefulness....In the case of the EU and NATO, not to mention the UN Security Council, this has truly gone amok.

Now is the time for democracies to dig in their heels and proclaim that enough is enough -- that right will be forced to triumph. In the end, we will all be stronger for it.