Winners and Losers in the Council: Voting Power Consequences of EU Enlargements

Who will have power in the enlarged European Union? How will the enlargement of the EU alter the configuration of Member States’ a priori voting power in the Council of Ministers? One of the most controversial topics debated in the 1996‐97 Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) was the need for institutional reform, namely how to make EU decision‐making more effective. An important dimension of institutional reform is the challenge posed by enlargement. The entry of several new countries will have considerable consequences for the functioning of EU institutions. This article analyses the distribution of voting power in the Council of Ministers under different majority requirements in an enlarged Union. The analysis shows how the enlargement weakens the influence of all Member States. The larger Member States will lose more than the others, relatively speaking. The more stringent the decision rule, the more power the smaller members have.