- Viktor Orbán presenting the programme for the 2024 Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU to the European Parliament.
August has been far from a quiet summer month in European and global politics, but at least one thing has been as it has for years: The EU institutions themselves largely went on summer break, with no public Council votes or European Parliament sessions. This does not mean that EU institutions were absent – we had an emergency (video) session of the Foreign Affairs Council and lots to chew upon for the permanent representatives in Brussels surrounding the talks on Ukraine. But as there were no public Council votes or European Parliament sessions, I’ve decided to use the August edition to take a look back at the Council votes in the last 12 months, so from July 2024 to June 2025. As previously, all the data comes from the SWP EU Council Monitor and only covers the public Council votes.
I have compiled this data for the last couple of years for the Jahrbuch der Europäischen Integration, for which I have written, together with Dominik Rehbaum, the chapter on the Council of the EU. Its voting patterns match the institutional cycle, with the time after the European elections usually with less votes. So in the time span covered, we are looking at 74 public votes under qualified majority (QMV). From these, five aspects stand out.
1. Still a high consensus
Despite the continuous notion in the public of growing splits in the EU, the consensus rate remains surprisingly high: Despite voting under QMV, 82.4% of the votes were passed either unanimously or with only abstentions. This means that at least at the end of negotiations, the national governments in four of five cases still find broad consensus in the EU. In none of the 74 votes were there more than two countries voting no.
2. Outlier Hungary
The biggest outlier remains Hungary, which was outvoted 5 times (4 no votes and 1 abstention. This means that Hungary, under Orbán, still voted in favour of more than 90+% of the dossiers. For recent years, that is actually a high degree of support for Council votes by Hungary. In fact, ever since the UK has left the EU, Hungary has been the country most often in opposition in public Council votes. The twist is that Hungary actually had the Council Presidency in the second half of 2024, and still let itself be outvoted twice (1 no vote, 1 abstention) at a time it could set the agenda.
I use the phrase ‘let itself be outvoted’ deliberatedly, as other governments often negotiate until they get at least part of their aims and then vote in favour even if they do not support all aspects. Orbán, in contrast, seems to prefer to lose visibly in Brussels and then blame the EU for ‘dictating’ decisions to Hungary. If we just look at the (rather few) public votes in the first half of 2025, Hungary was outvoted 20% of the time.
3. German vote
The public votes also show the ‘German vote’, i.e. when Berlin, due to differences of positions within the coalition, abstains in the Council. The time period of July 2024 to June 2025 was one where Germany was for the most part without a functional government. And, as expected, together with Czechia it was the country which abstained the most, for a total of 4 abstentions. In the case for Germany, they all happened in the second half of 2024. With the new German government having promised to avoid any more German votes, it will be curious to see this statistic next year.
4. Eight governments voting always in favour
A total of eight national governments voted in favour of every single Council decision, neither abstaining or voting against a single time. Geographically and politically, they came from all different parts of the Union – Western Europe (France, Ireland), Southern Europe (Cyprus, Greece), Central/Eastern Europe (Romania, Slovenia, Croatia), North-Eastern Europe (Lithuania).
5. Abstentions and no votes: V4 and Frugals stand out
There were two distinct blocs of countries who make up the bulk of the no votes and abstentions: the Visegrad Four (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) and (what used to be) the Frugals (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Sweden). For the V4, this is both because Slovakia is partially catching up with Hungary in terms of outlier status, whereas the more pro-European governments in Czechia and Poland abstain more often when they neither fully reject nor embrace an EU decision. In case of the Frugals, it is often budget or protectionist economic decisions part of them reject.
Taken together, the V4 make up ~28% of abstentions, with the Frugals clocking in at ~23%, so a total of 51% of all abstentions in the last 12 months. For the ‘no votes’, the figures are even higher: 43.8% of no votes comes from the V4, and 31.3% from the Frugals. Together, the V4 and Frugals thus account for 75% of all no votes in the last 12 months. Note: This is about their share of the no votes/abstentions. Individually, the countries all still vote for Council decisions 90+% of the time. Nevertheless, the size of this finding really surprised me and underlines that there are two groups of countries much more often in opposition. Finally, it has to be noted that in no single vote more than two countries voted against, so neither the V4 nor the Frugals voted as a block against a proposal in the last 12 months.
This concludes my August review with a closer look at the Council votes in the last year. With EU institutions resuming normal sessions – including the ‘State of the Union’ speech in the EP – the next edition of EU Analytics will continue with the regular schedule.
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Nicolai von Ondarza is Head of the Research Division EU/Europe of the German Institute of International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik). |
EU Analytics is a monthly column by Nicolai von Ondarza. It focuses on data-driven analysis of EU institutional affairs, looking at voting in the European Parliament and the public votes of the Council of the EU. The articles are cross-posted here from Nicolai’s own newsletter on Substack, where he occasionally also does other institutional analysis.
