Council Voting in the Constitutional Treaty: Devil in the Details

This CEPS Policy Brief argues that since the Nice Treaty
rules will be in force during the formative years of the
enlarged EU, the most pressing task for EU leaders is
not to get the Constitutional Treaty ratified but to fix the
Nice rules without a treaty change.

The June 2004 EU summit failed to solve the
enlarged EU’s decision-making problems.
Although the Constitutional Treaty’s
double-majority voting rules would have
maintained the enlarged EU’s ability to
act, the botched Nice Treaty rules will
continue to govern the Council’s
decision-making up to November 2009. This
failure will have important consequences since
the Council, Commission and Parliament must
make many tough decisions in the next five
years and this will be extremely difficult
under Nice Treaty voting procedures. Most
importantly, these five years will be decisive
in forming the public’s opinion on the
enlarged EU. If the next five years see a
series of deadlocks, bitter disputes and missed
deadlines, EU citizens are likely to grow ever
more disenchanted with the endeavour – and
the position of the Eurosceptics ever stronger.
Regardless of whether the Constitutional Treaty
becomes law, the Nice Treaty rules will be in
force during the critical, formative years of
the new EU. In this sense, the most pressing
task facing EU leaders is not to get the
Constitutional Treaty ratified – it is to
fix the Nice rules without a treaty
change. 

This abstract has been taken directly from
the 
CEPS Policy Brief 

written by 
Richard Baldwin

and 
Mika Widgrén. 

The document can be downloaded from 
this page

.