Irish presidency presents fresh proposals on Council voting

A paper by the Irish Presidency (

CIG 83/04) makes new proposals on qualified majority voting in the event that the Council does not act on the proposal by the Commission (or the EU Minister for Foreign Affairs). This happens notably in the fields of justice and home affairs, common foreign and security policy, economic and monetary policy and in a possible future case of suspension or withdrawal of a Member State. In such cases, the Presidency suggests that qualified majority should be defined as 72 per cent of the Council's members representing 65 per cent of the EU's population.

The general definition of qualified majority voting would be set at 55 per cent of Member States comprising at least 65 per cent of the EU's population, in line with the Presidency's previous paper. The Presidency's paper defines the 'blocking minority' as four negative votes cast by Member States.

The document makes a special mention of areas where only some Council members have the right to vote (eg. eurozone or enhanced co-operation). In such cases, the same percentages would apply (depending on the policy area) but only to the Member States with voting rights.

On the composition of the European Parliament, the new paper proposes capping the overall number of MEPs at 750, setting the minimum threshold of MEPs at six and the maximum number of members at 96 per Member State.

The IGC takes centre stage during the afternoon on 18 June. EU leaders will try to agree on a candidate for the post of Commission president afterwards.

President of the European Parliament Pat Cox has told journalists that the Commission President could theoretically be elected at a later stage but his nomination would need to take place prior to the first meeting of the new Parliament. MEPs are scheduled to vote on the new Commission President on 21 July. Cox declined to comment on his own candidacy.