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CESifo Economic Studies Advance Access originally published online on January 7, 2009
CESifo Economic Studies 2009 55(1):30-56; doi:10.1093/cesifo/ifn039
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following CESifo Economic Studies issue: Reinventing Europe [View the issue table of contents]

The Impact of Council Voting Rules on EU Decision-Making1

Mika Widgrén*

* Public Choice Research Centre (Turku), CEPR, CESifo and Turku School of Economics, Rehtorinpellonkatu 3, 20500 Turku, Finalnd. e-mail: mika.widgren{at}tse.fi

This article deals with the design of voting rules in the European Union (EU) Council. Both internal and external impact of the voting rules are examined. Internal impact affects the distribution of power among the Member States, and external impact affects power relations between the main decision-making bodies in the EU. One of the main lessons of the analysis is that voting rules matter. This clearly explains why the design of Council voting rules has required so much bargaining and cumbersome marathon negotiations. The internal decision-making rules in the Council have substantial impact on both the national distribution of power in the Council and inter-institutional power between the EU's; decision-making bodies. (JEL codes: C70, D71, D71, H77).

Key Words: European integration • Council of Ministers • power


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