Voting in the Council

(Photo: Notat)

The decision-making rules basically demand an absolute majority of Member States (23 of 25 countries), but this is seldom used.

Much more common is unanimity and qualified majority voting.
A majority of member states, also representing 62% of the EU population where the votes of the member states' populations are weighted as follows.

Germany 29
United Kingdom 29
France 29
Italy 29
Spain 27
Poland 27
Netherlands 13
Greece 12
Czech Republic 12
Belgium 12
Hungary 12
Portugal 12
Sweden 10
Austria 10
Slovakia 7
Denmark 7
Finland 7

Ireland

7
Lithuania 7
Latvia 4
Slovenia 4
Estonia 4
Cyprus 4
Luxembourg 4
Malta 3
TOTAL 321

The future

The EU Constitution proposes introducing a more simple voting system in 2009: a double majority will consist of 55 % of the member states, representing at least 65% of the EU's population.