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12 Eur. J.L. & Econ. 5 (2001)

handle is hein.journals/eurjlwec12 and id is 1 raw text is: European Journal of Law and Economics, 12:1; 5-38, 2001 P4 © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands. Voting Powers and the Efficiency of the Decision-Making Process in the European Council of Ministers SILVIA FEDELI fedeli@dep.eco.uniromal.it Universitd di Roma, La Sapienza Facolt6 di Economia, Dipartimento di Economia Pubblica; Via del Castro Laurenziano, 9, 00161 Roma, Italy FRANCESCO FORTE forte@dep.eco.uniromal.it Universitd di Roma, La Sapienza Facolt6 di Economia, Dipartimento di Economia Pubblica; Via del Castro Laurenziano, 9, 00161 Roma, Italy Abstract We analyse the efficiency effects in combination with some accepted fairness criteria for the voting games in the European Council of Ministers (ECM) under the qualified majority voting (QMV), before and after the Nice new scheme, in comparison with hypothetical simple majority voting rules (SMV), by jointly examining voting weights and voting powers. The differences between the voting weights and the voting powers increase considering the attitude of the Governments of the Member States of the ECM, to form voting-blocs' historically that among France, Germany and Belgium and, more recently, the bloc between the United Kingdom and Spain. Their voting powers by blocking proposals result in stalemates and weak compromise with likely benefits for existing well organised interest groups. Unexpectedly, the enlargement of EU from 12 to 15 States, with the diminution of the voting weights of the member countries has not reduced the decisional deficit of QMV, basically because the incentive toward blocs' formation has been reinforced. And, while the power of getting a proposal approved has diminished, the veto-power has remained very high. The effects of the new dual QMV rule, based on a new distribution of votes and correcting the unbalance against the big countries with their demographic weights, for the enlargement to 27 States, seems to go in the same direction. The adoption of a dual SMV, would solve the problems of decision efficiency, with a fairness constraint to protect the major countries. To make this voting rule acceptable one might adopt the Buchanan and Tullock (1962) distinction between constitutional principles to whom the unanimity or QMV might be reserved and post constitutional rules suitable to SMV. Clubs of enhanced co-operation among countries with more homogeneous preferences could also ease the application of SMV. Keywords: voting rules, simple majority, qualified majority, decision-making fairness vs. efficiency, voting weights, voting power index, bloc formation, blocking power, EU enlargement JEL Classification: Hi, Kl, F01 1.1. Introduction It is a common opinion that, because of defective voting rules, the European Union (EU) suffers a decisional deficit. The decisions by its main body, the European

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