Population, Voting and Article 205 EC

You'll remember no doubt that Article 205 §4 EC reads:

‘4. When a decision is to be adopted by the Council by a qualified majority, a member of the Council may request verification that the Member States constituting the qualified majority represent at least 62 % of the total population of the Union. If that condition is shown not to have been met, the decision in question shall not be adopted.’

The Council first amended its Rules of Procedure by a Decision of October 11th, 2004 setting out the population figures for each member State. It also set out the figure that represents the 62% threshold.

Just as it did for last year, the Council has amended those rules of procedure to adjust the population figures for 2008. The new Decision dated December 20th 2007 is available here. The 62% threshold figure has increased from 286,020,900 to 306,964,400.

Comments

[Jon Worth]

A rather arcane observation!

But does this change the actual use of the 62% criterion, i.e. the possible combinations of countries that would be able to use it to block a decision? For an analysis of that see this post I wrote a while back about the impact of enlargement to 27 MS on the 62% rule:

http://www.jonworth.eu/why-large-eu-states-are-no-longer-so-equal/