To prevent diplomatic shakedowns, Europe must curb abusive national vetoes

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 laws are made, outlining the various powers of European institutions in Brussels as they marshal 27 member states towards ever-closer union.But not included in the rulebook’s 600-plus articles is a mention of an edict that arguably holds sway over all business. Some say it does not exist anymore, others that it never really did; Eurocrats speak of it in hushed tones, as if mindful not to wake a monster. The Luxembourg Compromise holds that any national government can single-handedly derail any measure if it feels its “vital interests” are threatened. According to the rules, in most instances if enough member states agree, they can impose their will on a recalcitrant few. In the real world, the compromise suggests, a strong enough squeal from any one national government is enough to stall even measures agreed by the other 26 and institutions, rules be damned. (The measure was crafted in 1966 to assuage Charles de Gaulle, so piqued was he that lesser Europeans had designs to impose their rules on the French.)