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Bridging qualified majority and unanimity decision-making in the EU. IHS Political Science Series No. 132, February 2013

Tsebelis, George (2013) Bridging qualified majority and unanimity decision-making in the EU. IHS Political Science Series No. 132, February 2013. [Policy Paper]

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    Abstract

    The EU has tried to bridge decision making by qualified majority and unanimity over the years by expanding qualified majorities (consensus) or by making unanimities easier to achieve. I call this decision-making procedure q-“unanimity” and trace its history from the Luxembourg compromise to the Lisbon Treaty, and to more recent agreements. I analyze the most recent and explicit mechanism of this bridging (article 31 (2) of the Lisbon Treaty) and identify one specific means by which the transformation of qualified majorities to unanimities is achieved: the reduction of precision or scope of the decision, so that different behaviors can be covered by it. I provide empirical evidence of such a mechanism by analyzing legislative decisions. Finally, I argue that this bridging is a ubiquitous feature of EU institutions, used in Treaties as well as in legislative decision-making.

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    Item Type: Policy Paper
    Uncontrolled Keywords: Lisbon Treaty, Article 31; qualified majority q-unanimity; decision-making; foreign policy; social choice theory; tatonnement process; veto players; co-decision; consultation.
    Subjects for non-EU documents: EU policies and themes > EU institutions & developments > institutional development/policy > decision making/policy-making
    EU policies and themes > EU institutions & developments > institutional development/policy > historical development of EC (pre-1986)
    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: 27 Aug 2013 17:48
    Number of Pages: 42
    Last Modified: 27 Aug 2013 17:48
    URI: http://aei.pitt.edu/id/eprint/42922

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