Suchergebnisse

The Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) used by the Council of the European Union developed to a high degree of complexity from one modifying treaty to another, until the latest definition stipulated in the Treaty of Lisbon. This paper analyses this EU intra-institutional voting method using a rational choice approach and emphasizes that there are situations when not even the institutions, as rational actors, can avoid a collective irrational outcome even when they are addressing subjects such as voting power distribution. It also addresses several shortcomings of the Liberal Intergovernmentalist explanatory framework focusing on the insufficiently developed level of credible institutional commitments. The core part of the article consists in investigating several types of EU Council internal decision-making options, proposing how they can be designed to be considered in the same time fair and efficient, and in analysing how close this voting power ideal type configuration is to the current decisional system.

The idea of qualified majority voting in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is not new, but its momentum has been boosted by the growing international challenges facing the EU. The German government argues that abolishing the unanimity principle would make the EU a stronger foreign policy actor in face of rising transatlantic tensions, a resurgent Russia and an expansive China. But short of an overall treaty amendment the legal possibilities are limited. Qualified majority voting in the CFSP is also problematic if it weakens the EU's internal legitimacy and external credibility. A dual approach is necessary: in the medium term strengthening the CFSP through flexible integration; in the long term supporting the development of a shared strategic culture through the establishment of collective European threat analysis and intelligence.

The idea of qualified majority voting in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is not new, but its momentum has been boosted by the growing international challenges facing the EU. The German government argues that abolishing the unanimity principle would make the EU a stronger foreign policy actor in face of rising transatlantic tensions, a resurgent Russia and an expansive China. But short of an overall treaty amendment the legal possibilities are limited. Qualified majority voting in the CFSP is also problematic if it weakens the EU's internal legitimacy and external credibility. A dual approach is necessary: in the medium term strengthening the CFSP through flexible integration; in the long term supporting the development of a shared strategic culture through the establishment of collective European threat analysis and intelligence. (Autorenreferat)

Ausgehend von diesbezüglichen innenpolitischen Auseinandersetzungen in Großbritannien im Jahr 1993 wird das Abstimmungsverfahren innerhalb des EU-Ministerrats, vor allem dessen qualifiziertes Mehrheitsprinzip (qualified majority voting) problematisiert. Dabei wird die britische Position bezüglich der (als zu gering kritisierten) Vetomöglichkeiten im Ministerrat dargestellt und einer rechnerischen Ermittlung des "Stimmgewichts" (voting power) im Ministerrat gegenübergestellt. (AuD-Trn)

When a group has to make a decision, one can assume that the members' incentives to state their position vary according to the different decision rules. Decision-making in the Council of the European Union offers an opportunity to study how a decision rule influences the way members of a group state their position. Indeed, in several areas, decisions must be made by qualified-majority voting. But the combination of this rule and of social norms specific to the Council discourages the minority from expressing itself at different stages of decision-making. Decisions seem to be made without opposition at two main stages of the decision-making process: during the plenary sessions, representatives do not vote; according to the official Council records, a high proportion of measures are adopted without opposition.

Conflict within the British Conservative Party over the European Union provided a great deal of copy for media political coverage during 1992–94. It was undoubtedly responsible for severely damaging the prime minister's reputation within his party and the country. In July 1993, he could only achieve ratification of the Maastricht Treaty by making voting for it an issue of confidence in the House of Commons, thereby obtaining the support of most 'Eurosceptic' Conservative MPs. Nine months later, failure to achieve the United Kingdom's goal regarding voting procedures in the Council of Ministers following enlargement of the EU in 1995 led to several calls for his resignation from among his own party's MPs, including one in the House itself.

Debates on an EU-leaving referendum arose in several member states after Brexit. We want to highlight how the exit of an additional country affects the power distribution in the Council of the European Union. We inspect the power indices of the member states both with and without the country which might leave the union. Our results show a pattern connected to a change in the number of states required to meet the 55% threshold. An exit that modifies this number benefits the countries with high population, while an exit that does not cause such a change benefits the small member states. According to our calculations, only the exit of Poland would be supported by the qualified majority of the Council.

This book presents the most complete set of analytical, normative, and historical discussions of majority decision making to date. One chapter critically addresses the social-choice approach to majority decisions, whereas another presents an alternative to that approach. Extensive case studies discuss majority voting in the choice of religion in early modern Switzerland, majority voting in nested assemblies such as the French Estates-General and the Federal Convention, majority voting in federally organized countries, qualified majority voting in the European Union Council of Ministers, and majority voting on juries. Other chapters address the relation between majority decisions and cognitive diversity, the causal origin of majority decisions, and the pathologies of majority decision making. Two chapters, finally, discuss the counter-majoritarian role of courts that exercise judicial review. The editorial Introduction surveys conceptual, causal, and normative issues that arise in the theory and practice of majority decisions

This paper analyzes the consequences of the 1992 change in the voting rule in the Finnish Parliament. Before this reform, one third of all Parliament members could delay a law proposal for reconsideration by the Parliament. This rule was abolished in 1992 which meant that the Finnish Parliament finally adopted a simple majority rule to decide on new legislation. The empirical part of this article analyzes the effects of the reform on the parliamentary parties voting power. The voting power of the big parties increased compared to that of the small parties. However, the variation among smaller parties was greater. The biggest losers were medium size parties. Considering the government and the parliament as institutions, the emphasis clearly moved to the government. Considering parties in the government coalitions as a whole (adding up their share in the government and in the Parliament), the picture was quite clear. The opposition lost at least some of its voting power. This change was clearest in the case of the party government model in which the opposition lost its voting power completely.