To help you in those end of year trivia quizzes, you'll be pleased to know that the Council has once again amended its Rules of Procedure to quantify the 62% population threshold set out in the rules on qualified majority voting.
You may recall that Article 3(3), fourth subparagraph, of the Protocol (No 36) on transitional provisions annexed to the Treaties provides that, until October 31 2014, when an act is to be adopted by the Council by a qualified majority, and if a member of the Council so requests, it shall be verified that the member States constituting the qualified majority represent at least 62 % of the total population of the Union calculated according to the population figures set out in Article 1 of Annex III to the Council’s Rules of Procedure.
The Council must adapt the population figures for the coming calendar year. The Council has now done that in its Decision of December 14th 2010 for the year 2011 published here.
The total population of the EU is now 501,090,400. The 62% threshold is now 310,676,100 (up from 309,792,400 last year).
This is a very interesting debacle! Certainly a problem we don't struggle with in the U.S. Perhaps, though, we should spend more time thinking about these matters.
Posted by: Mary | December 28, 2010 at 11:18 AM