CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN REFORM
briefing note
THE EU CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY: THE FINAL DEAL By Aurore Wanlin EU leaders finally reached agreement on the EU’s new constitutional treaty at their Brussels summit on June 18th. Although the summit was marked by a series of acrimonious exchanges, particularly between Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair, EU leaders were determined to agree the new treaty, following the embarrassing collapse of their previous summit in December 2003. Poland and Spain, which had stubbornly opposed the treaty’s new system of decision-making, were more willing to compromise. Britain faced surprisingly little opposition to its ‘red lines’, such as the preservation of unanimous voting on tax issues. This briefing note provides a summary of the key decisions taken at the June European Council’s summit:
1. VOTING WEIGHTS The member-states have agreed to scrap the complicated system of qualified majority voting that they currently use for taking decisions in the Council of Ministers. Instead the EU will use a ‘double majority’ system, to come into force in 2009, under which a measure would pass if it is supported by 55 per cent of the member-states representing at least 65 per cent of the EU population. This new system comes from a difficult compromise with Poland and Spain. Both countries insisted on keeping the fiendishly complicated ‘triple majority’ system agreed in Nice, under which they got an unduly high share of votes. As compensation, Poland and Spain managed to insert a safeguard clause that says a blocking minority must consist of at least four countries, which gives them more weight vis a vis bigger member-states. In some policy areas, such as foreign and security policy, justice and home affairs, or monetary policy, it will be the Council, an individual member-state or the European Central Bank that takes the initiative rather than the Commission. In these cases, the voting threshold is raised to 72 per cent of the member-states representing 65 per cent of the population. The constitutional treaty’s new double majority voting is simpler and more transparent than the current qualified majority system, and a huge improvement over the opaque triple majority system foreseen in the Nice treaty. However, the raised thresholds and safeguard clauses added at the last minute will diminish some of the benefits by making it more difficult to reach decisions in an EU of 25 or more member-states.
2. EXTENSIONS OF MAJORITY VOTING To keep the enlarged EU functioning, the new treaty not only introduces a simpler voting system, it also reduces the number of policy areas that require member-states’ unanimous agreement. However, Britain and some other countries were sceptical about any further extension of majority voting, with Britain drawing ‘red lines’ around some policy areas that it considers particularly sensitive. As a compromise, the treaty retains the national veto for crucial areas, such as taxation, key aspects of defence and foreign policy, and
Centre for European Reform 29 Tufton Street London SW1P 3QL UK
T: 00 44 20 7233 1199 F: 00 44 20 7233 1117 info@cer.org.uk / www.cer.org.uk