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QMV, DOUBLE VOTING: explaination needed
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10-06-2008 9:30pmok i understand must of the other important stuff, commissioner, common defense etc. Now i need someone to explain how the qmv voting system works currently and how it will
change under lisbon. i want impartial links to back them up also.
i also want to know about what areas the paraliament gains ie the balance between losing a commissioner and the increased
power of the paraliment. i also want links.
i want to hear from the yes and no people but i want impartial links.
cheers!0
Comments
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This is taken directly from the referendum commissions site.Referendum Commission wrote:Proposed Changes – Council (of Ministers)
Meetings
At present, the Council takes decisions in private and holds some policy debates in public. If the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified, the Council will meet in public when a law is being debated and approved.
Voting
At present, some decisions by the Council must be made unanimously while others are made by Qualified Majority Voting (QMV). Under the QMV system, each Member State’s vote is given a weighting. This is not directly proportionate to the population. The weighting arrangements give smaller countries a greater share than their populations would warrant if a directly proportional arrangement existed.
If ratified, the Treaty would:
• increase the number of areas where QMV will apply;
• change the QMV voting system within the Council from 2014.
Areas to which Qualified Majority Voting applies
At present, QMV applies to decisions on a wide range of issues including agriculture, competition rules, consumer protection, environment and judicial co-operation in civil matters. It is proposed to apply QMV to a number of new areas – these include energy, asylum, immigration, judicial co-operation in criminal matters and sport.
Certain decisions will continue to be made unanimously – they include decisions on defence and taxation. This means that any Member State may veto a proposed change in these areas.
Changes within Qualified Majority Voting
At present, each member state has a weighted vote as follows:
France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom
29
each
Spain, Poland
27
each
Romania
14
The Netherlands
13
Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal
12
each
Austria, Bulgaria, Sweden
10
each
Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovakia
7
each
Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Slovenia
4
each
Malta
3
Total
345
A Qualified Majority Vote (QMV) at present requires 255 weighted votes – that is almost 74% of the total. This system would remain in place until 2014. If the Treaty is ratified, from 2014, a qualified majority (also to be known as a double majority) will require that decisions must meet two conditions:
a) 55% of the Member States must agree: (for example, while there are 27 Member States, 15 Member States must agree);
b) those Member States supporting the decision must represent 65% of the EU population.
In addition, at least four Member States must be opposed to a decision in order for it to be blocked. This ensures that decisions cannot be blocked by just 3 of the larger Member States acting together.
If there are fewer than 4 Member States opposed to a decision then the qualified majority will be deemed to have been reached even if the population criterion is not met.
Presidency of the Council
The present six month rotating Presidency will continue for all Councils except the Foreign Affairs Council which will be chaired by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
http://www.lisbontreaty2008.ie/lisbon_treaty_changes_gov.html
This is my opinion of the new QMV system.New areas will become subject to QMV rather than the unanimous decision making process currently operated. Two areas which remain under unanimous decision are Taxation, Foreign policy & Defence. The Lisbon treaty reorganises the voting system of the Council. The council at the moment has a QMV system which give each state a weighted vote which does not match their population size (e.g. Germany has 16% if the population but only has 8% of the vote, Ireland has 0.8% of the population but has 2% of the vote) and a 75% majority is required. It replaces this with a double QMV system whereby there are two requirements for legislation to pass. First it has to have 55% of member states in agreement, this currently gives each member state an equal 3.75% say. Second those member states in favour must represent at least 65% of the population, so here we have 0.8% weight and Germany has 16% weight. This double QMV the voting system roughly balanced in favour of smaller countries as it did before, in that an individual Irish citizens vote is still slightly more powerful than a German citizens.
You can find my overall opinion on the Lisbon treaty here0 -
From what I can tell, there are at least six methods by which the council can vote, post-Lisbon
Article|Dates Applicable|When used|Method
TEU 16 (4)|1/11/2014 onwards|Default voting method (as far as I can tell)|- To pass: 55% of members (minimum 15), 65% population
- To block: Four council members
TFEU 238 (1)|Not specified, I assume this means from the passing of the treaty|When required by the treaties|Simple majority
TFEU 238 (2)|1/11/2014 onwards|When not acting on a proposal from the Commission or from the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy|72% of members, 65% population
TFEU 238 (3) (a)|1/11/2014 onwards|When not all of the members are voting on a proposal|- To pass: 55% of members, 65% population
- To block: members representing 35% population plus one member
TFEU 238 (3) (b)|1/11/2014 onwards|When not all of the members are voting on a proposal and when that proposal was not from the Commission or from the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy|72% of members, 65% population
PoTP 3 (3) and 3 (4)|Between 1/11/2014 and 31/03/2017|If a member requests it|- Weighted votes with the same weights as Nice.
- 255 weighted votes are needed to pass.
- A member can request that the member states making up the qualified majority represent at least 62% of the population. If no-one requests it, this provision need not be met.
TEU = Treaty on European Union
TFEU = Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
PoTP = Protocol on Transitional Provisions0 -
For the 6 voting methods above:
- Appears to replace a voting method I'll call "Nice 50%".
- Is new.
- Appears to replace a voting method I'll call "Nice 67%".
- Is the same as 1 except is used in the case of "enhanced cooperation" votes.
- Is the same as 3 except is used in the case of "enhanced cooperation" votes.
- Is a transitional method and is the same as the Nice methods except that the percentage of countries requirement is gone.
"Nice 50%" requires 50% of countries, 74% of the weighted votes and 62% of the population.
"Nice 67%" requires 2/3s of countries, 74% of the weighted votes and 62% of the population.
So, to compare old with new (and, where possible like with like) I have compared some of the voting methods by writing a program to brute force all 134.2 million potential voting scenarios. I have not done the enhanced cooperation ones, since the number of permutations is higher and I hadn't taken that into account when first writing the program. If people want, I can do those as well, but it may not get done before the vote happens.
The method I have used is to define a notion of a "win". A country "wins" if their vote is the same as the final outcome. If they vote yes, they only win if the proposal passes; if they vote no, they only win if the proposal fails.
Here are 1 vs "Nice 50%" and 3 vs "Nice 67%" (the two most likely voting scenarios as I see them):
Country|Wins with Nice 50%|Wins with TEU 16(4)|% Change
Austria|67935350|67111454|-1.21
Belgium|68091934|67111454|-1.44
Bulgaria|67935350|67111454|-1.21
Cyprus|67444384|67111454|-0.49
Czech Republic|68091934|67111454|-1.44
Denmark|67692480|67111454|-0.86
Estonia|67444384|67111454|-0.49
Finland|67692480|67111454|-0.86
France|69177624|67111464|-2.99
Germany|69177624|67111472|-2.99
Greece|68091934|67111454|-1.44
Hungary|68091934|67111454|-1.44
Ireland|67692480|67111454|-0.86
Italy|69177624|67111464|-2.99
Latvia|67444384|67111454|-0.49
Lithuania|67692480|67111454|-0.86
Luxembourg|67444384|67111454|-0.49
Malta |67360308|67111454|-0.37
Netherlands|68170648|67111454|-1.55
Poland|69083206|67111460|-2.85
Portugal|68091934|67111454|-1.44
Romania|68247372|67111454|-1.66
Slovakia|67692480|67111454|-0.86
Slovenia|67444384|67111454|-0.49
Spain|69083206|67111460 |-2.85
Sweden|67935350|67111454|-1.21
UK|69177624|67111464|-2.99
Country|Wins with Nice 67%|Wins with TFEU 238 (2)|% Change
Austria|67867657|67634816|-0.34
Belgium|67965305|67640436|-0.48
Bulgaria|67867657|67633544|-0.34
Cyprus|67565761|67620020|0.08
Czech Republic|67965305|67638332|-0.48
Denmark|67719853|67628780|-0.13
Estonia|67565761|67620976|0.08
Finland|67719853|67628658|-0.13
France|68669973|67768654|-1.31
Germany|68669973|67839364|-1.21
Greece|67965305|67640436|-0.48
Hungary|67965305|67638332|-0.48
Ireland|67719853|67626524|-0.14
Italy|68669973|67755348|-1.33
Latvia|67565761|67622890|0.08
Lithuania|67719853|67624900|-0.14
Luxembourg|67565761|67619358|0.08
Malta |67509981|67619216|0.16
Netherlands|68013311|67656000|-0.53
Poland|68592905|67703908|-1.3
Portugal|67965305|67640436|-0.48
Romania|68065305|67664486|-0.59
Slovakia|67719853|67628780|-0.13
Slovenia|67565761|67622350|0.08
Spain|68592905|67712100 |-1.28
Sweden|67867657|67636194|-0.34
UK|68669973|67758640|-1.33
I welcome comments on the method of assessing the voting methods. I know it's not a particularly sophisticated analysis, but I think it's a fair way of measuring the old vs new voting results.0 -
That analysis looks like it comes to substantially the same conclusions as one that was done on politics.ie by the poster invryn. That analysis also suggested the big winner was Malta, the smallest state - an effect of Malta's extremely small size - and also suggested that the decisive changes were actually very small.
It certainly gives a very different impression from the bland claim that Ireland's voting weight is "cut in half". Indeed, it rather suggests that the people who redesigned QMV did so rather carefully and thoughtfully!
I think we do pretty well out of it.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
That is some nice work. Did you calculate the difference for all permutations of countries voting for and against? If so that would be 27! (factorial) if my leaving cert maths is still with me. That's 1.0888869450418352160768e+28 permutations. How long did it take to calculate?0
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That is some nice work. Did you calculate the difference for all permutations of countries voting for and against? If so that would be 27! (factorial) if my leaving cert maths is still with me. That's 1.0888869450418352160768e+28 permutations. How long did it take to calculate?
It's 2^27 which is 134.2 million. It takes a little over a minute on my laptop. It could probably be made faster, but that's fast enough for my needs.
If you have a background in computer science, the reasoning goes like this: Represent each yes/no vote with a single bit. There are 27 member countries. That means that any vote can be represented with a 27 bit number. Iterate through all 27 bit numbers and you get all 134.2 million possibilities.0 -
It's 2^27 which is 134.2 million. It takes a little over a minute on my laptop. It could probably be made faster, but that's fast enough for my needs.
If you have a background in computer science, the reasoning goes like this: Represent each yes/no vote with a single bit. There are 27 member countries. That means that any vote can be represented with a 27 bit number. Iterate through all 27 bit numbers and you get all 134.2 million possibilities.
Clever. I did do computer science for 2 years at DIT but found it wasn't for me so I dropped out to spend a year in Canada.
Hope you don't mind me adding your post to my sig.0 -
It certainly gives a very different impression from the bland claim that Ireland's voting weight is "cut in half".
Yeah, after doing this exercise, I'm pretty confident at calling that claim a pile of bollocks.Indeed, it rather suggests that the people who redesigned QMV did so rather carefully and thoughtfully!
Maybe yes, maybe no.
The number of vote permutations in the TEU 16 (4) method that result in the proposal being passed is a paltry 3294. It makes it (in theory at least) harder to get a measure passed. I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, I'm a big fan of consensus and it's a lot closer to consensus than the old method with 2,545,542 "Yes" permutations. On the other hand, it might make it harder to get things done in the EU.
The other interesting thing is that there are only 10 permutations of votes in the TEU 16 (4) method that lead to a "No" without using the blocking vote method. That is to say, a situation where 3 or fewer countries are against a proposal yet the majority conditions are not met.0 -
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Yeah, after doing this exercise, I'm pretty confident at calling that claim a pile of bollocks.
So what are Libertas on now? Null points?Maybe yes, maybe no.
The number of vote permutations in the TEU 16 (4) method that result in the proposal being passed is a paltry 3294. It makes it (in theory at least) harder to get a measure passed. I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, I'm a big fan of consensus and it's a lot closer to consensus than the old method with 2,545,542 "Yes" permutations. On the other hand, it might make it harder to get things done in the EU.
The other interesting thing is that there are only 10 permutations of votes in the TEU 16 (4) method that lead to a "No" without using the blocking vote method. That is to say, a situation where 3 or fewer countries are against a proposal yet the majority conditions are not met.
It does make it slightly easier to block legislation under QMV, but I think that is to compensate for the reduction in vetoes.
cordially,
Scofflaw0 -
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So what are Libertas on now? Null points?
Pretty much.
That said, I don't really trust any of the big proponents/opponents of the treaty ("big" being any group big enough to put posters on lampposts). For me they break down into two main groupings: Untrustworthy/deluded/lazy/poorly informed people advocating the right choice and untrustworthy/deluded/lazy/poorly informed/mad* people advocating the wrong choice.
I admire Libertas for their slick campaign, I only wish they were campaigning in favour of the treaty (without lying, mind you). The fact that the big political parties couldn't muster a similar campaign is a damning indictment in my book.It does make it slightly easier to block legislation under QMV, but I think that is to compensate for the reduction in vetoes.
I guess that makes sense.
* I haven't seen much evidence of crazy people on the yes side. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.0 -
I forgot to mention: if anyone wants the source code to the program I used just PM me.0
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I have previously been referred to this thread during a discussion on QMV here. ConorIRL last year did some interesting simulations comparing various voting methods. His simulations showed little major difference between country voting powers for QMV under Nice and under Lisbon. I had some somewhat technical doubts (perhaps really too technical for a discussion board like this but anyway! ) about how relevant such simulations really were. I've done a little reading since in the the theory behind voting systems. I just want to attach a health warning here to claims made using such simulations.
ConorIRL from what I can see basically generates enormous numbers of voting configurations and tests and compares different voting systems using these. Essentially he generates a voting configuration by randomly tossing 27 coins corresponding to the different countries. My concern was that there would be quite a strong statistical bias in generating voting configurations in this manner. Statistically this would be a binomial distribution and the number of yes's versus no's would concentrate quite strongly around the middle (27/2 = 13.5) with voting configurations with roughly equal numbers of yes's and no's predominating. The extra rules with QMV would complicate this further but such random sampling of voting configurations would still introduce a certain type of strong uniform sampling bias. I wondered whether voting patterns in real world situations would really be similar to this.
I found that ConorIRL's simulations are quite similar to the measuring of voting systems according to the Banzhaf power index (one of the standard indices for measuring voting power). This measure seems slightly more sophisticated than (if not that different to) Conor's approach. Rather than just counting winning votes it measures critical winning votes for a country (where if that country changed its vote to a no the overall vote would fail and therefore this counts where its vote really matters). The Banzhaf method has previously been used to measure voting power under the QMV systems with results not that dissimilar to Conor's.
However, my doubts regarding the potential bias from generating voting configurations by random sampling (tossing coins) do turn out to be valid. In papers by Gelman, Katz and Bafumi and Mulligan and Hunter it was been shown that when real voting patterns were used the actual voting weights/powers observed were substantially different from that predicted by Banzhaf and similar voting power indices and simulations. For example such voting index theory would suggest that in general the actual voting power of a country or it citizens would be closely related to a formula based on the square root of its voting weight in the voting system. This is the basis of the Penrose method which the Poles unsuccessfully tried and failed to make the voting system under Lisbon. However in these papers it was found in real world voting systems with real voting pattern data that a country's actual voting power did not correspond to what would be predicted or expected from voting indices or such simulations. They found that most often a country's effective voting power was simply proportional to its actual weighting in the voting system.
Therefore one has to be wary when interpreting the results of such simulations. The results they give can incorporate rather subtle biases. I would argue that the seemingly less sophisticated method of comparing voting weights may be just as valid!0 -
@finbar10, those doubts would be legitimate if an element of chance existed in the script but it doesnt as far as I know. ConorIRL evaluates every possible voting pattern (134.2 million possibilities) of the 27 countries so there is no element of chance.
....or maybe not - 27! = 10,888,869,450,418,352,160,768,000,000. Perhaps the man himself could clear it up.0 -
@finbar10, those doubts would be legitimate if an element of chance existed in the script but it doesnt as far as I know. ConorIRL evaluates every possible voting pattern (134.2 million possibilities) of the 27 countries so there is no element of chance.
....or maybe not - 27! = 10,888,869,450,418,352,160,768,000,000. Perhaps the man himself could clear it up.
It wouldn't matter. Whether he randomly samples and tests a huge number of votes or just goes through them all from start to finish wouldn't essentially make any difference. I would guess he goes through them all one by one. 2^27 steps wouldn't probably be too big a problem to computers these days.0 -
It wouldn't matter. Whether he randomly samples and tests a huge number of votes or just goes through them all from start to finish wouldn't essentially make any difference. I would guess he goes through them all one by one. 2^27 steps wouldn't probably be too big a problem to computers these days.
If he goes through them all, his program will indeed accurately answer the question, what is the percentage difference between the number of 'wins' for Ireland (or any other country) under Nice, and under Lisbon.0 -
PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »If he goes through them all, his program will indeed accurately answer the question, what is the percentage difference between the number of 'wins' for Ireland (or any other country) under Nice, and under Lisbon.
Yes, I'm sure that's pretty much what his program does. And that it gives that answer. I'm just questioning the usefulness of that answer. His answer assumes that all possible voting configurations are equally likely. In the real world that's just not the case.
To give an example. In IRLConor's simulations above one could actually safely remove the rule that at least four countries must vote against a proposal to block it. This obviously helps curb the power of the bigger countries. Removing this rule in the simulation would have almost no effect on the results generated. Why?
There are 2^27 possible voting configurations. The four country rule only makes any difference to voting configurations with 3 or less countries.
There would be only
Binomial(27,0) + Binomial(27,1) + Binomial(27,2) + Binomial(27,3)
= 27/(!0!27!) + 27!/(1!26!) + 27!/(2!25!) + 27!/(3!24!)
=1+27+351+2925 = 3304 of these.
But they only form 3304/2^27 = 0.000025
of all possible votes.
If one assumes all voting configurations are equally likely then one would have to assume that a situation where only 3 or less countries would vote against a proposal would almost never occur (or only 0.000025 of the time). These votes would only form a negligible part of the simulation results above. So IRLConor's simulations wouldn't capture this important characteristic of the Lisbon QMV system.
But the 4 country minimum rule is there. Obviously someone must think it is important and that otherwise small groups of large countries blocking votes would happen more often than just 0.000025 of the time. That's just a simple example of the bias inherent in treating all voting configurations equally. When real voting pattern data is used the results are often significantly different from such simulations.0 -
@finbar10, those doubts would be legitimate if an element of chance existed in the script but it doesnt as far as I know. ConorIRL evaluates every possible voting pattern (134.2 million possibilities) of the 27 countries so there is no element of chance.
....or maybe not - 27! = 10,888,869,450,418,352,160,768,000,000. Perhaps the man himself could clear it up.It wouldn't matter. Whether he randomly samples and tests a huge number of votes or just goes through them all from start to finish wouldn't essentially make any difference. I would guess he goes through them all one by one. 2^27 steps wouldn't probably be too big a problem to computers these days.
My program calculates all 2^27 voting possibilities. I don't trust my statistical abilities well enough to do anything less than a full simulation without screwing it up or introducing a bias.
You are correct to point out that the probabilities of each voting configuration actually occurring are not equal. After all, common sense would dictate that a proposal would not be brought to a vote unless the proponents thought there would be some chance of it passing!
I did extend the program to produce a metric which I called "influences" which seems very similar to the Banzhaf system. It counted the number of times each country had a vote which, if changed, would change the result of the overall vote. I'll dig out the results and post them here.0 -
Facepalm for turgon - I thought the number of possibilities were 27! but sure that accounts for order in which they vote, which is irrelevant. So much for studying Maths0
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But the 4 country minimum rule is there. Obviously someone must think it is important and that otherwise small groups of large countries blocking votes would happen more often than just 0.000025 of the time.
As far as I could determine, the 4 country rule is more important for domestic political reasons than for anything else. I'd honestly be surprised if we ever saw it used.0 -
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Here are the figures I mentioned earlier. As I define it, an "influence" for a country is a voting configuration where that country would alter the overall vote if it changed its vote.
|Nice 50%|TEU 16 (4)|Percentage Change
Austria|1652972|5180|-99.6866250607996
Belgium|1966140|5180|-99.7365396156937
Bulgaria|1652972|5180|-99.6866250607996
Cyprus|671040|5180|-99.2280639008107
Czech Republic|1966140|5180|-99.7365396156937
Denmark|1167232|5180|-99.5562150455094
Estonia|671040|5180|-99.2280639008107
Finland|1167232|5180|-99.5562150455094
France|4137520|5200|-99.8743208492044
Germany|4137520|5216|-99.873934144125
Greece|1966140|5180|-99.7365396156937
Hungary|1966140|5180|-99.7365396156937
Ireland|1167232|5180|-99.5562150455094
Italy|4137520|5200|-99.8743208492044
Latvia|671040|5180|-99.2280639008107
Lithuania|1167232|5180|-99.5562150455094
Luxembourg|671040|5180|-99.2280639008107
Malta|502888|5180|-98.9699495712763
Netherlands|2123568|5180|-99.7560709146116
Poland|3948684|5192|-99.8685131552689
Portugal|1966140|5180|-99.7365396156937
Romania|2277016|5180|-99.7725092840806
Slovakia|1167232|5180|-99.5562150455094
Slovenia|671040|5180|-99.2280639008107
Spain|3948684|5192|-99.8685131552689
Sweden|1652972|5180|-99.6866250607996
UK|4137520|5200|-99.8743208492044
|Nice 67 %|TFEU 238 (2)|Percentage Change
Austria|1517586|1051904|-30.6857074327254
Belgium|1712882|1063144|-37.9324436826355
Bulgaria|1517586|1049360|-30.853342084073
Cyprus|913794|1022312|11.8755430655049
Czech Republic|1712882|1058936|-38.1781115103084
Denmark|1221978|1039832|-14.9058330019035
Estonia|913794|1024224|12.0847805960643
Finland|1221978|1039588|-14.9258006281619
France|3122218|1319580|-57.7358147317068
Germany|3122218|1461000|-53.2063424142709
Greece|1712882|1063144|-37.9324436826355
Hungary|1712882|1058936|-38.1781115103084
Ireland|1221978|1035320|-15.2750704186164
Italy|3122218|1292968|-58.5881575213518
Latvia|913794|1028052|12.5036933926027
Lithuania|1221978|1032072|-15.540868984548
Luxembourg|913794|1020988|11.7306526416238
Malta|802234|1020704|27.2327026777723
Netherlands|1808894|1094272|-39.5060185947878
Poland|2968082|1190088|-59.9038031968119
Portugal|1712882|1063144|-37.9324436826355
Romania|1912882|1111244|-41.9073419060873
Slovakia|1221978|1039832|-14.9058330019035
Slovenia|913794|1026972|12.385504829316
Spain|2968082|1206472|-59.3517968843179
Sweden|1517586|1054660|-30.5041032270988
UK|3122218|1299552|-58.37728179134190 -
Here are the figures I mentioned earlier. As I define it, an "influence" for a country is a voting configuration where that country would alter the overall vote if it changed its vote.
<snip>
Thanks. I'll take a look at these.
The four country rule was more of an example
of how voting configurations (particularly blocking
groups) with smaller numbers of countries would
be very poorly represented in simulations.
Anyway, the four country rule actually already is
built into Nice QMV. It needs at least four
countries to block anything. The voting weights
of the biggest three countries sum to
29+29+29 which doesn't quite meet the blocking
quota of 90. So in reality one could simply ignore
this rule when comparing the two systems.0 -
the four country rule actually already is
built into Nice QMV. It needs at least four
countries to block anything.
My understanding was the blocking in Nice was only 3 countries.0 -
BlitzKrieg wrote: »My understanding was the blocking in Nice was only 3 countries.
I don't think there's any blocking condition as such.
However assuming no country abstains a blocking minority
would require more than 90 votes.
Since the largest number of votes a country has is 29,
3 big countries alone wouldn't exceed the 90 minimum.
Therefore four would be needed.
Of course abstentions would mess this up.
But the above seems to make sense to me otherwise.
But my understanding may well be wrong!0 -
I don't think there's any blocking condition as such.
However assuming no country abstains a blocking minority
would require more than 90 votes.
Since the largest number of votes a country has is 29,
3 big countries alone wouldn't exceed the 90 minimum.
Therefore four would be needed.
Of course abstentions would mess this up.
But the above seems to make sense to me otherwise.
But my understanding may well be wrong!
Hmm, it does operate a little bit like a blocking condition but the real difference is that Lisbon allows any 4 countries to block rather than 4 big ones.
I was under the impression that there's no explicit blocking provision in Nice. Am I wrong? If so, the numbers I've provided need revising.0 -
Hmm, it does operate a little bit like a blocking condition but the real difference is that Lisbon allows any 4 countries to block rather than 4 big ones.
I was under the impression that there's no explicit blocking provision in Nice. Am I wrong? If so, the numbers I've provided need revising.
I don't think that is any different to Lisbon.
In Lisbon one needs at least four countries to block.
But four countries alone may not be enough. Their
combined population needs to exceed 35%.
Similar for Nice as far as I can see.
There exist several combinations of four countries that
can block (none with less countries)
but not all combinations of four countries can block.0 -
Nice articleArticle 205 (*)
1. Save as otherwise provided in this Treaty, the Council shall act by a majority of its Members.
2. Where the Council is required to act by a qualified majority, the votes of its Members shall be
weighted as follows:
Belgium 5
Denmark 3
Germany 10
Greece 5
Spain 8
France 10
Ireland 3
Italy 10
Luxembourg 2
Netherlands 5
Austria 4
Portugal 5
Finland 3
Sweden 4
United Kingdom 10.
For their adoption, acts of the Council shall require at least:
— 62 votes in favour where this Treaty requires them to be adopted on a proposal from the
Commission,
— 62 votes in favour, cast by at least 10 members, in other cases.
3. Abstentions by Members present in person or represented shall not prevent the adoption by the
Council of acts which require unanimity.
searched the term block and nothing came back so I assume there is no blocking minority. But I'll keep looking.
Seems it was my mistake.0 -
Hmm, it does operate a little bit like a blocking condition but the real difference is that Lisbon allows any 4 countries to block rather than 4 big ones.
I was under the impression that there's no explicit blocking provision in Nice. Am I wrong? If so, the numbers I've provided need revising.
And I don't think there's any explicit blocking provision. It's just in practice this four country rule is implicitly built in.0 -
I don't think that is any different to Lisbon.
In Lisbon one needs at least four countries to block.
But four countries alone may not be enough. Their
combined population needs to exceed 35%.
No that only applies if not all member states are involved in the vote. Mostly because depeneding on the number of members taking part 4 might be extremely difficult to achieve (say 5 states are voting on something) So instead its 35% of the population of the member states taking part.3. As from 1 November 2014 and subject to the provisions laid down in the Protocol on
transitional provisions, in cases where, under the Treaties, not all the members of the Council
participate in voting, a qualified majority shall be defined as follows:
(a) A qualified majority shall be defined as at least 55 % of the members of the Council representing
the participating Member States, comprising at least 65 % of the population of these States.
A blocking minority must include at least the minimum number of Council members representing
more than 35 % of the population of the participating Member States, plus one member, failing
which the qualified majority shall be deemed attained;
and my misunderstanding of the blocking minority was not that it was a system only applying to 3 states, but that the 3 biggest states of the EU alone have the voting weight to block any legaslative in the EU. Lisbon raises it to 4 as a requirement regardless of population.0 -
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