Austria who keeps veto-ing Romania's Schengen application with bullshit reasons that don't hold water, is the first example I can think of but there are many more. Also anti-nuclear Austria who sued Hungary over building a new nuclear powerplant. And there are several other examples between other countries, on other topics as well.
Basically the countries with veto power on certain topics that benefit the greater good of the union, abuse it to bully the others, in order to get concessions on non-related topics that only benefit their own agenda. It's basically a mafia shakedown because some want to have their cake and eat it too.
It's better than going to war against each other like in the past over such things, but this constant squabbling and the sheer pettiness, is holding EU development back compared to US and China.
The fact that Austria, a corrupt and putin controlled country can decide if a member state can or cannot conduction friction-less trade is appalling. Then there's poland constantly being sanctioned or threatened, the eu ignoring east european please for lower dependency on russian oil and gas, then there are the threats against south european countries if they elect the "wrong" people and so on and so forth.
I don't think there is a cabal of bros sitting in dark rooms plotting and scheming.
I think what we are seeing here is the good old european mindset in action and the defunct system it created.
The "founding fathers" of the EU wanted something completely different, yet toxic european habits keep resurfacing.
We see the same type of propaganda against the "lesser folks" (notice how europeans treat other europeans simply because of their ethnicity or country of origin), the desire for living space and expansion, coercion and control, splitting territories among powers, and so on. If you read european history books you will see that none of this is new - not even the war in ukraine and the us intervening to prevent europe from cannibalizing itself once again, and so on.
The old empires of europe have proxied via Brussels and are doing what they always did. And it will end up with the same results, over and over again. Europe never learns.
Basically the countries with veto power on certain topics that benefit the greater good of the union, abuse it to bully the others, in order to get concessions on non-related topics that only benefit their own agenda. It's basically a mafia shakedown because some want to have their cake and eat it too.
It's better than going to war against each other like in the past over such things, but this constant squabbling and the sheer pettiness, is holding EU development back compared to US and China.