Letter: Consensus-seeking is EU’s rational survival strategy

From Alberto Alemanno, Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law, HEC Paris Business School, France Letter: Consensus-seeking is EU’s rational survival strategy on x (opens in a new window) Letter: Consensus-seeking is EU’s rational survival strategy on facebook (opens in a new window) Letter: Consensus-seeking is EU’s rational survival strategy on linkedin (opens in a new window) Save current progress 100% PublishedSEP 15 2025 3 Print this page Martin Sandbu rightly diagnoses the EU’s consensus paralysis preventing it from becoming more decisive (“The EU must leave its culture of consensus behind”, Opinion, September 8). While he correctly identifies the symptoms — deference to blocking minorities, fear of pushback from major member states, endless accommodation of national interests — he neglects the structural reason why this consensus-seeking culture persists despite its obvious dysfunction. After over 70 years of unprecedented socio-economic integration, the EU lacks equivalent political integration. Without an EU-wide electoral contest and true European political parties, the system prevents the aggregation of political preferences across borders, instead artificially dividing them along national lines. As a result, we cannot determine whether most Europeans support retaliating against the Trump administration, defending Ukraine, or ratifying a trade deal such as Mercosur because no mechanism exists to directly gauge Europeans’ preferences. EU leaders remain accountable to national constituencies, not European ones, making consensus-seeking their rational survival strategy. Until Europe creates genuinely transnational democratic institutions, the EU will remain structurally incapable of decisive action when it matters most.

Alberto Alemanno Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law HEC Paris Business School, France