Qualified majority

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

A qualified majority (QM) is the number of votes required in the Council for a decision to be adopted when issues are being debated on the basis of Article 205(2) of the EC Treaty.

Following the 2000 Inter Governmental Conference and the Nice Treaty, the number of votes allocated to each Member State has been re-weighted, in particular for those States with larger populations, so that the legitimacy of the Council's decisions can be safeguarded in terms of their demographic representativeness. After 1 January 2007, following enlargement of the Union, the QM went up to 255 votes out of a total of 345, representing a majority of the Member States. Moreover, a Member State may request verification that the QM represents at least 62% of the total population of the Union. If this is not the case, the decision is not adopted.

As the various institutional reforms have taken effect, QM voting (QMV) has replaced unanimous voting, which is less effective for developing an operational Community policy (veto risk).

See:

• Council of the European Union
• Double majority
• Ioannina compromise
• Reinforced qualified majority
• Unanimity
• Weighting of votes in the Council