Blocking minority

: (Photo: EU Commission)

A blocking minority is the number of votes needed to block a decision to be made by qualified majority voting. In EU 27 a blocking minority requires 91 votes of the 345 votes in the Council. A qualified majority requires 255 of 345 votes.

The Lisbon Treaty will introduce a radical reform for voting in the Council with so-called “double majority”. First an approval requires 55 % of the member states This means that a blocking minority can be established by a little more than 45% of the member states. This new system enters into force in 2014.

There will then also be the more important vote based on population size. Here, a qualified majority requires a majority of states representing 65% of all EU states' citizens. It means that member states with 35% of the citizens will have a blocking minority. It is added that at least four member states are required to block a decision.

This new voting system establishes the biggest member states with a much stronger voting powers in the Council. Germany's share of the vote will increase from 8.4% of the votes today to 16.4% in the Lisbon Treaty. Ireland's share will be reduced from 2.0% to 0.9%.

Links

The Union's decision-making procedure http://europa.eu/scadplus/cons......titution/doublemajority_en.htm