Power in the Design of Constitutional Rules

This paper examines different ways of measuring power and the use of these measures in the context of the European Union. The paper deals with classical power indices of co-operative games and more recent non-cooperative a priori measures. Special emphasis of the paper is in inter-institutional balance of power, Nice reforms and eastern enlargement.

Is the allocation of voting power among EU states fair?

It has often been claimed that the current voting process within the EU Council of Ministers is not fair. In this paper we verify this assertion by carrying out an evaluation of the distribution of power among the member states. The results show that the current distribution of votes for the qualified majority does not lead to a fair distribution of power whatever definition of the EU is considered. It can not be claimed however that the current voting process has a systematic bias in favor of certain states. We also present a simple method to derive voting weights which lead to a fair allocation of power.European Union; Voting Power; 1966 Conference

The Draft Constitutional Treaty’s Voting Reform Dilemma. CEPS Policy Brief No. 44, November 2003 (With Postscript of 7 December 2003)

[Introduction]. The ongoing Intergovernmental Conference (IGC 2003) must re-shape Giscard d’Estaing’s draft into a Constitutional Treaty that can be signed and subsequently ratified by all 25 members of the enlarged European Union. Things are not going well. The most obvious sticking point concerns the reform of voting rules in the EU’s key decisionmaking body, the Council of Ministers. Here is the problem. As it turns out, the voting scheme that Giscard d’Estaing’s Praesidium put into the draft Constitutional Treaty is not politically acceptable to all EU members (it concentrates power in the hands of the four largest EU members at the expense of Spain, Poland and many small members). Indeed, Giscard’s system is so impolitic that any draft Constitutional Treaty that contains it will almost certainly fail to garner the necessary unanimous support. Yet, if the ongoing IGC does not find an alternative to Giscard’s system, the EU will face decision-making paralysis because the fallback position is the blotched voting system from the Nice Treaty. Hence the dilemma: papering over problems with Giscard’s unpopular voting rules puts the whole draft Constitutional Treaty at risk, but failing to agree an alternative voting scheme risks decision-making paralysis. In this policy brief, we summarise the findings of our research that uses the quantitative tools of voting game theory to show: Why Giscard’s scheme is politically unacceptable to many nations; How various modified voting rules may solve the dilemma. Specifically we identify two possible solutions to the dilemma. First, changing Giscard’s double-majority thresholds from 60% of population and 50% of membership to 60% and 60% respectively would go a very long way to reducing the concentration of power in the hands of the four largest nations (‘Big-four’), yet still maintain the EU’s ability to act; a ratio of 50%-50% would also work. Second, if the IGC decides to stay with the Nice Treaty’s triplemajority voting system, modestly lowering two of the three majority thresholds would maintain efficiency without further shifting power to big nations. Before turning to possible solutions, the first task is to show that the Nice voting reforms will not work, and, in the process, to show why Spain and Poland are so attached to the Nice system

Council Voting in the Constitutional Treaty: Devil in the Details. CEPS Policy Briefs No. 53, 1 July 2004

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

Decision-Making and the Constitutional Treaty: Will the IGC discard Giscard? CEPS Policy Brief No. 37, August 2003

[Introduction]. The EU’s draft Constitutional Treaty proposes the most radical reform of EU institutions ever put forward – more radical than those in the Single European Act, the Maastricht and Nice Treaties combined. Many of the changes have been debated, but little notice has been paid to what is perhaps the most critical reform: the change in the EU’s decision-making procedures. Decision-making rules are the heart of any constitution and the EU is no exception. Most EU laws are adopted on the basis of majority voting. These laws are binding in all member states, including those that had opposed them. Consequently, nations should take great care when crafting such rules. Nations should also be very alert to changes in their power shares in the decision-making process, since this share has a big influence on how often they will end up having to adopt laws that they voted against in the EU institutions

Weighting votes in the Council: Towards a 'Warsaw compromise'? CEPS Commentaries, 20 June 2007

One of the key obstacles to a swift agreement on how to reform the EU institutions is the belated insistence of Poland to reopen the issue of voting weights in the Council. The system unanimously agreed in the Constitutional Treaty (CT) foresaw a double majority system under which a (qualified) majority requires two elements: at least 55% of the member states accounting for at least 65% of the EU’s population

Märkätilojen väliseinävaihtoehdot asuinkerrostalossa ja Excel-ohjelman luonti

Tämä opinnäytetyö vertailee kuutta erilaista märkätilojen väliseinävaihtoehtoa. Rakennevaihtoehtoehtoja ovat kiviainespohjaiset harkko- ja elementtirakenteet sekä erilaiset peltirankarunkoiset levyrakenteet. Kiviainespohjaiset vaihtoehdot ovat kevytsoraharkko, kalkkihiekkaharkko ja kevytsorabetonielementti. Levyrakenteiset vaihtoehdot ovat märkätilakipsilevy yksinkertaisena, märkätilalevy kaksinkertaisena ja sementtilevy. Työ pohjautuu Talonrakennusteollisuus ry:n ja Rakennustieto Oy:n julkaisemaan Ratu-kortistoon, joka sisältää tutkimustietoihin perustuvat työmenetelmäkuvaukset, työmenekkitiedot, laadunvarmistuksen menettelyt ja rakennustöiden turvallisuusohjeet. Ratu-kortiston tiedoilla tehtiin Excel-ohjelma, joka laskee lopputuloksena työmenekin, materiaalimenekin ja materiaalin hukasta aiheutuvan jätteen määrän. Kirjallisessa osassa esiteltiin ensin kyseessä olevat väliseinävaihtoehdot, jonka jälkeen pystyttiin määrittämään jokaiselle vaihtoehdolle menekit. Opinnäytetyön tuloksena saatiin ohjelma, jolla voidaan tarkastella eri väliseinävaihtoehtojen taloudellista kannattavuutta asuinkerrostaloissa.The thesis compares six different alternatives for partitions in sanitary cabins. The alternatives are breeze block, expanded clay aggregate concrete panel, plaster board, double plaster board, sandlime block and cement board. The thesis was based on RATU card files, published by Talonrakennusteollisuus ry and Rakennustieto Oy, which includes description of work, knowledge of labour input, quality assurance and instruction of safety at work. With the help of the information from Ratu-card files an excel-program was made, which calculated the results of labour input, amount of material and material loss. In the theory part, the alternatives were presented first, since the number of alter-natives was defined. As a result of the thesis, a program was made which can used to examine the economic profitability of different alternatives of partitions in an apartment house

EU-enlargement and the Opening of Russia: Lessons from the GTAP Reference Model

This paper examines the economic effects of the opening of the former Soviet Union. The analysis carried out in the paper is two-fold. First we simulate the impact of the eastern enlargement of the EU and, second, we analyse how deeper integration between the EU and FSU contributes to this. The analysis is carried out with FTAP computable general equilibrium model. We find that there is a trade-off between the two roads of European integration arrangements. Eastern enlargement seems, even in its very deep form, be beneficial for all EU regions without causing substantial welfare losses outside the Union. The only regions that seem to lose somewhat are NAFTA and Japan. EU-CIS integration, on the other hand, has different impact. To be beneficial for CIS-countries free trade between the EU and CIS countries requires improved productivity in the latter, which may be due to better institutions or increased FDI, but still the agreement is not beneficial for large parts of the EU and the rest of the world

Revealed Comparative Advantage in Trade Between the European Union and the Baltic Countries

Digitised version produced by the EUI Library and made available online in 2020