Suchergebnisse

The European Economic & Monetary Union (EMU) is widely viewed as one of the most important developments in recent European integration. But it is less clear why the EMU was started at all, &, more specifically, what the role of individual European Community (EC) member states has been in this process. Most importantly, some puzzling questions arise when trying to establish why Germany favored EMU, & as to its relative importance in the intergovernmental EMU negotiations. This article focuses on the negotiations that led to the establishment of the EMU. It first describes the environment in which the decision was made to move from the existing European monetary system (EMS) to the EMU. It then seeks to explain how agreement was reached on EMU & on its institutional provisions & timing as foreseen in the Treaty on European Union (TEU) & its Protocols. In order to explain this, the article resorts to a database that contains information on the preferences that EC governments held with respect to different aspects of the EMU. In addition, it employs simple negotiation models to explore these issues & looks into possible two-level game dynamics that may have influenced the intergovernmental bargaining process. 2 Tables, 3 Figures, 48 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article is concerned with challenges to reforming the voting procedures of the Council of the European Union (EU). The next major waves of EU enlargement will cause the Union to increase to a membership of first twenty-one, and then twenty-six or possibly even more states. How does enlargement affect the Council's inherent "capacity to act" under the currently used qualified majority voting rule? It is demonstrated here that the expected increase in EU membership will most likely induce a larger "status quo bias" as compared to the present situation in the Council if the crucial majority decision quota is not lowered. In addition, the article is responding to some criticism that has been applied against assessing the leverage of EU governments in one of the EU's most important institutions: the Council of the EU. By resorting to techniques that capture the influence of a priori coalitions on the one hand and "connected coalitions" among EU governments on the other—applying n-person cooperative game theory—the piece illustrates how the assessment of relative voting leverage in the framework of weighted voting systems may be extended and applied to situations in which the specific distribution of members' preferences is known. These calculations are again relevant in the face of the upcoming rounds of EU enlargement and projects for institutional reform.

Abstract. Most decisions by the European Parliament are taken by an absolute majority of its members. Some decisions however – such as the approval of the budget of the European Union – require a two‐thirds majority. The paper analyzes the a priori voting strength of the member states when their representatives vote coherently. It is shown that the increase in votes for Germany in the 1994 reallocation enhanced its position. A less favourable effect, however, can be seen for the other large members (France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain). However, since votes in the EP tend to be cast according to partisan rather than national affiliation, the relative voting power of the political groups with respect to the two quotas is also analyzed. The tool to measure this is the (normalized) Banzhaf power index, partially extended to account for connected coalitions. The paper demonstrates that the distribution of votes between the present EU member states as allocated in proportion to their population size indeed roughly corresponds to their a priori voting power. However, the relative influence of the largest political groups, the European Socialists and the European People's Party, tends to be overestimated by their share of seats in the framework of the simple majority rule, but it is considerable if the quota is two‐thirds. Finally, under the two‐thirds majority rule, the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party as well as the small groups appear to be almost powerless. The more the EP gains political leverage – a further increase in its institutional powers is to be expected in the framework of the ongoing Intergovernmental Conference – the more the distribution of voting power between the member states and between the political groups will be a crucial factor in the shaping of EU policies.

Most decisions by the European Parliament are taken by an absolute majority of its members. Some decisions however - such as the approval of the budget of the European Union - require a two-thirds majority. The paper analyzes the a priori voting strength of the member states when their representatives vote coherently. It is shown that the increase in votes for Germany in the 1994 reallocation enhanced its position. A less favourable effect, however, can be seen for the other large members (France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain). However, since votes in the EP tend to be cast according to partisan rather than national affiliation, the relative voting power of the political groups with respect to the two quotas is also analyzed. The tool to measure this is the (normalized) Banzhaf power index, partially extended to account for connected coalitions. The paper demonstrates that the distribution of votes between the present EU member states as allocated in proportion to their population size indeed roughly corresponds to their a priori voting power. However, the relative influence of the largest political groups, the European Socialists and the European People's Party, tends to be overestimated by their share of seats in the framework of the simple majority rule, but it is considerable if the quota is two-thirds. Finally, under the two-thirds majority rule, the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party as well as the small groups appear to be almost powerless. The more the EP gains political leverage - a further increase in its institutional powers is to be expected in the framework of the ongoing Intergovernmental Conference - the more the distribution of voting power between the member states and between the political groups will be a crucial factor in the shaping of EU policies. (European Journal of Political Research / FUB)