Fairness and Squareness: Fair Decision Making Rules in the EU Council?

Abstract

The concept of fair representation of voters in a committee representing different voters’ groups, such as national representations in union of states, is discussed. This concept, introduced into discussion about voting rights in the Council of European Union in 2004, was narrowed to proposal of distribution of voting weights among the member states proportionally to square roots of population. Such a distribution should guarantee the same indirect voting power to each EU citizen, measured by Penrose-Banzhaf index of voting power. In this paper we attempt to clarify this concept.Council of Ministers, indirect voting power, Penrose-Banzhaf power index, Shapley-Shubik power index, square root rule, simple voting game