Europe | Charlemagne

To prevent diplomatic shakedowns, Europe must curb abusive national vetoes

Time to tweak the notorious Luxembourg Compromise

At 344 pages in its English version, the Consolidated Version of The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union displays, as one might expect, a degree of exhaustiveness. The bloc’s constitution-in-all-but-name includes three pages of rules regulating the exports of a refinery in the Dutch Antilles. There is a mention of who gets to own summer houses in Denmark (only Danes). Somewhere in there are also bits on how eu laws are made, outlining the various powers of European institutions in Brussels as they marshal 27 member states towards ever-closer union.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “The Reverse Luxembourg”

Should Europe worry?

From the September 24th 2022 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Europe

François Hollande hopes to make the French left electable again

The former president moves away from the radicals

Friedrich Merz

Germans are growing cold on the debt brake

Expect changes after the election


Pope Francis in Rome, Italy

The Pope and Italy’s prime minister tussle over Donald Trump

Giorgia Meloni was the only European leader at the inauguration


Europe faces a new age of gunboat digital diplomacy

Can the EU regulate Donald Trump’s big tech bros?

Ukrainian scientists are studying downed Russian missiles

And learning a lot about sanctions-busting