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The Flexibility of Constitutional Design. Enlargement and the Council of the European Union. IHS Political Science Series: No. 97, June 2004

Hosli, Madeleine O. (2004) The Flexibility of Constitutional Design. Enlargement and the Council of the European Union. IHS Political Science Series: No. 97, June 2004. [Working Paper]

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    Abstract

    The choice of a decision rule for the Council of the EU constitutes a trade-off in terms of decreased sovereignty for individual governments versus an increased ‘capacity to act’. The provisions of the draft constitutional treaty would considerably increase constitutional flexibility regarding day-to-day decision-making in the EU, but without adequately protecting the interests of the citizens of smaller and medium-sized member states. By comparison, provisions foreseen in the Treaty of Nice, which essentially amount to the implementation of a ‘triple-majority rule’ in Council decision-making, would lower the Council's capacity to act, but would lead to a more moderate ‘re-balancing’ in favor of larger EU states. Finally, the paper provides background calculations indicating that, with twenty-five member states, the EU risks being unable to reach intergovernmental agreement and hence, a challenging issue for the EU is to move towards provisions allowing for its own constitution, once adopted, to be amended.

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    Item Type: Working Paper
    Subjects for non-EU documents: EU policies and themes > Treaty reform > Constitution for Europe
    EU policies and themes > EU institutions & developments > European Council
    Subjects for EU documents: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Series and Periodicals: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Annual Reports: UNSPECIFIED
    Series: Series > Institute for Advanced Studies (Vienna), Department of Political Science > IHS Political Science Series
    Depositing User: Phil Wilkin
    Official EU Document: No
    Language: English
    Date Deposited: 26 Oct 2004
    Page Range: p. 33
    Last Modified: 15 Feb 2011 17:20
    URI: http://aei.pitt.edu/id/eprint/2010

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