Voting power in the Council of the European Union: A comprehensive sensitivity analysis

D\'ora Gr\'eta Petr\'oczy and L\'aszl\'o Csat\'o
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Dóra Gréta Petróczy

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Abstract: The Council of the European Union (EU) is one of the main decision-making bodies of the EU. Many decisions require a qualified majority: the support of 55% of the member states (currently 15) that represent at least 65% of the total population. We investigate how the power distribution, based on the Shapley-Shubik index, and the proportion of winning coalitions change if these criteria are modified within reasonable bounds. The power of the two countries with about 4% of the total population each is found to be almost flat. The level of decisiveness decreases if the population criterion is above 68\% or the states criterion is at least 17. The proportion of winning coalitions can be increased from 13.2% to 20.8% (30.1%) such that the maximal relative change in the Shapley-Shubik indices remains below 3.5% (5.5%). Our results are indispensable in evaluating any proposal for reforming the qualified majority voting system.

Date: 2023-12, Revised 2024-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-gth and nep-pol
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