Double majority

The glossary is being updated given the recent signing of the Treaty of Lisbon.

In the light of enlargement, solutions have been put forward for maintaining the current balance between "large" and "small" countries in decision-making in the Council of Ministers. Maintaining the present system of weighting of votes in the Council after enlargement could produce a qualified majority representing only a minority of the population of the European Union. For this reason, the Member States with the highest populations wanted to see a reweighting or double majority system which would ensure that a majority in the Council represented a majority not only of Member States but also of the population of the Union.

The Treaty of Nice 2001, which set out to reform the operation of the Community institutions in the run-up to enlargement, redefines the qualified majority in terms of a double or even triple majority. While the reweighting of votes works in favour of the large Member States, the qualified majority must also be a majority of the Member States. This is combined with a system known as the "demographic safety net" which means that each Member State can request verification of whether the qualified majority represents at least 62% of the population of the Union. If this condition is not fulfilled, the decision cannot be adopted. These new rules entered into force on 1 November 2004.

See:

• Qualified majority
• Reinforced qualified majority
• Unanimity
• Weighting of votes in the Council