Qualified majority voting
Voting weights in the Council of the European Union today(weighted majority system):
| Country | Votes | Population
(millions)
|
|---|
|
| Germany | 10 | 82,0
|
| United Kingdom | 10 | 59,4
|
| France | 10 | 59,1
|
| Italy | 10 | 57,7
|
| Spain | 8 | 39,4
|
| Poland | 8 | 38,6
|
| Netherlands | 5 | 15,8
|
| Greece | 5 | 10,6
|
| Czech Republic | 5 | 10,3
|
| Belgium | 5 | 10,2
|
| Hungary | 5 | 10,0
|
| Portugal | 5 | 9,9
|
| Sweden | 4 | 8,9
|
| Austria | 4 | 8,1
|
| Slovakia | 3 | 5,4
|
| Denmark | 3 | 5,3
|
| Finland | 3 | 5,2
|
| Republic of Ireland | 3 | 3,7
|
| Lithuania | 3 | 3,7
|
| Latvia | 3 | 2,4
|
| Slovenia | 3 | 2,0
|
| Estonia | 3 | 1,4
|
| Cyprus | 2 | 0,8
|
| Luxembourg | 2 | 0,4
|
| Malta | 2 | 0,4
|
| Total votes | 124 |
|
| Blocking votes | 37
|
| Qualified majority | 88 |
|
Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) is a voting procedure employed in the Council of the European Union for some decisions, under which each member state has a fixed (weighted) number of votes. At present, any decision taken using QMV must gain a minimum of about 71% of the total votes in order to be adopted. Currently this is 88 votes (of 124), so it needs 37 to block a decision.
Two changes are planned to this:
Use of QMV vs unanimity
At present, QMV is used to make some decisions, while others require unanimity among all Council members. Under the proposed Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe, which has been agreed by the Council but has yet to be ratified by all member states, decisions in about 20 more policy areas will be taken using QMV, leaving only sensitive issues such as tax, social policy, defence and foreign policy subject to unanimity.
It is argued that this change will be necessary in order to streamline decision-making and prevent gridlock in a newly enlarged European Union. Some commentators have seen the change as a loss of sovereignty from individual member states, since it effectively abolishes the national veto in many secondary areas.
See also
