The Nice Treaty and Voting Rules in the Council

Abstract

The article examines debates on institutional reform in the intergovernmental conference (IGC 2000) that culminated in the Nice summit, and the effects of various proposals. The main issues were the indirect power Member States acquired through blocking minorities and how the outcome could be presented at home. The changes were rather modest, with two exceptions. A new population criterion gives Germany greater blocking power than the other large countries and preserves the possibility of three large countries together blocking in an EU of 27 members. Spain's voting weight increased substantially. The new blocking possibilities will affect the relative bargaining position of countries rather than the Union's decision-making capability.

Do votes matter? Voting weights and the success probability of member state requests in the Council of the European Union

“…Several studies have addressed how voting power affects not just the overall likelihood of change but also the power of individual member states Machover 1997, 2001;Koczy 2012). These considerations also played a prominent role in negotiations on Council reform (Moberg 2002;Norman 2005;König, Warntjen, and Burkhart 2006).…”

Die Konstitutionalisierung Europas zwischen Konvent, Regierungskonferenz und Verfassungsvertrag

“…der Machtbalance im EU-Gefüge arbeitenden Beiträge der letzten Jahre stellen relativ einfache Fragen (Mayer 2003;Moberg 2002;Hosli/Machover 2004;Pollak 2004): Wo ist auf europäischer Ebene Macht angesiedelt, und an welcher Stelle, mit welchem Instrumentarium wird Macht kontrolliert, durch Gegenmacht ausgeglichen oder kompensiert? Ist es sinnvoll, dass einmal identifizierte Machtstellen in der EU auch im Hinblick auf ein geographisch größeres und sozioökono-misch stärker ausdifferenziertes Gemeinwesen in ihrer jetzigen Form bestehen bleiben, oder sind Vorkehrungen zu treffen, um ineffizient gewordene Machtausübungsinstrumente und -institutionen zu reformieren, d.h. zu stärken oder in der einen oder anderen Form durch die Schaffung neuer Kontrollinstrumente auszugleichen?…”

Power analysis of the Nice Treaty on the future of European integration

“…Leech (2001) examines how a fair voting system can be designed using the scenarios of enlargement envisaged by the Nice Treaty. Moberg (2002), Galloway (2001), and Felsenthal and Machover (2001a) draw attention to ambiguities in the Nice Treaty regarding the voting rules. Finally, Baldwin et al (2001) emphasize the increasing importance of enhanced cooperation arrangements after analysing the ability of the EU's Commission, Council of Ministers and the European Parliament to affect EU decisions, in trying to answer if the Nice Treaty should be ratified.…”