Beyond Lisbon: Demographic trends and voting power in the European Union Council of Ministers

Abstract

Decision making has become slow in the 27-member European Union and the Treaty of Nice distributed power in a somewhat arbitrary way. The Lisbon Treaty makes decision making easier, and streamlines the process by removing the most controversial element: the voting weights. The new system relies entirely on population data. We look at the immediate impact of the reform as well as the long term effects of the different demographic trends across countries. We find that the Lisbon rules hurt medium sized countries, especially Central Eastern European countries with declining populations, most, while the United Kingdom is the clear winner.