The leaders of Hungary and Slovakia warned on April 28 against changing the European Union’s unanimity rule, after proposals emerged to bypass their opposition to Ukraine’s EU accession bid.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, the EU’s most Kremlin-friendly leaders, have consistently clashed with other member states over Ukraine since Russia’s invasion three years ago. Both have openly opposed Kyiv’s EU membership aspirations and have blocked financial aid packages to Ukraine, leveraging the unanimity requirement that effectively gives them a veto.

As bne IntelliNews reported, the EU is under enormous pressure as the Trump administration pulls back from aiding Ukraine which would drop all the responsibility for funding and arming Ukraine in Brussel’s lap. Hungary has threatened to block all further aid and Ukraine’s supporters in the EU are hunting for ways to circumnavigate the de facto vetoes.

One possibility is to invoke Article 7 of the EU treaty, which allows the other members of the Union to strip a country of its voting rights if it backslides on its Article 2 commitments to hold up ill defined “values.”

However, such a gambit is fraught with legal problems – the first being the need for all of the other 26 members to vote for the punishment – including Slovakia’s Fico. Some lawyers have speculated that Article 7 can be invoked against Slovakia and Hungary simultaneously thus making them ineligible to vote, but these strategies would be subject to legal challenges as the rules remain vague. The EU treaty was not written with a clear mechanism to expel members built into it.

Under mounting pressure to accelerate decision-making, 14 of the bloc’s 27 member states now support moving to qualified majority voting, according to EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos. However, any change to the voting rules would itself require unanimity, making reform prospects uncertain.

"Unanimity on foreign policy issues cannot be abandoned, because that would effectively remove the sovereignty of our states," Orban said on April 28 during an official visit to Bratislava. He stressed that Slovakia and Hungary remained "constructive EU members."

"Imagine if unanimity were not required on foreign policy issues... if some member states were unable to represent their interests, we could be dragged into a war," Orban added, reports AFP.

Fico, speaking alongside Orban, warned that "abolishing the veto is a step towards the abolition of the European Union," according to AFP. He further urged, "Don't take steps that can lead to the destruction of the EU," calling on the bloc’s "big players to listen to us."

Efforts to reform the EU’s decision-making process have gained urgency amid frustration over delays in critical areas such as enlargement, sanctions, and foreign policy. However, entrenched opposition from leaders such as Orban and Fico is expected to remain a significant obstacle.