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For a first content piece on Mastodon - earlier this week Julina Mintel and I published this analysis on more majority voting in the EU on the Föderalist blog:
https://www.foederalist.eu/2022/11/julina-mintel-nicolai-von-ondarza-mehrheitsentscheidungen.html
In the piece we analyse the different ways towards more QMV voting and their political costs.
In short: The golden rule remains that for QMV you first need unanimity, and that is not on the horizon today.
This is also connected to how the use of QMV in the Council has developed. Whereas before #Brexit the UK was always the most often outvoted member in the public votes, this is now Hungary.
Overall, in recent years France was never outvoted, Italy almost never and Germany rarely, while countries of CEE, in particular Hungary and Poland, are much more often in the minority. They therefore have every incentive to block majority voting.
Our proposals are twofold:
First, rather than argue with outvoting difficult Eu members, the main drive for QMV extension should be enlargement. Reforming the EU for a Union of 30+ members requires more majority voting. There is scope for a package deal of countries who want a speedy accession of Ukraine and those who want institutional reform.
Second, rather than go for the passerelle clauses - which also require unanimity and lengthy/difficult national processes - the voting reform should come through treaty change and include an 'emergency brake' to secure ntaional interests in the most sensitive areas, e.g. foreign policy.
Our full argument in English can be found here:
https://www.swp-berlin.org/publikation/more-eu-decisions-by-qualified-majority-voting-but-how